Spessartine

Unknown Owner

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A huge and fine gem example of a garnet from a major recent find. The full locality information for this deposit is near the town of Loliondo, close to Serengeti National Park and 7 km from the Kenyan border, W-NW of the north end of Lake Natron. It is closed to heavy traffic and on Maasai tribal lands. Some of these are even larger than this one, but they typically get less transparent as the size gets larger. The crystals light up a pretty orange-red color, similar to a Chinese scheelite, under good light. This one has a lot of good transparency to it, yet weighs 125 grams. It is also in fine condition, with textbook trapezohedral crystal form.