Spessartine Garnet

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This is a surprise in the collection that we had not seen from Burma before - a large and beautiful Burmese Spessartine Garnet, of a size not reported widely. It is a transparent to translucent, engaging orange-brown with a cinnamon tint, and with crystal faces covered in parallel oriented, triangular to diamond-shaped geometric growth features very similar to those from the Navegadora Mine in Brazil. There is some minor white Albite in association and it nearly a floater, only contacted on the bottom and back out of sight as displayed. It has a mass of 54.87 grams. This is a significant gem species specimen for the region, and very unusual for the mineralogy we have seen from Burma to date. Then again, maybe they found some from time to time and because it is not spinel, ruby, or sapphire, failed to get to the mineral market. It's possible, when they found these, these orange spessartines were simply cut with the rest of the native gems and sold as padparascha sapphires. Mark Mauthner photo.