This is one of my favorite such combo pieces out of literally hundreds seen in the last decade or so. It is a strinkingly 3-dimensional, sparkling, jewel-like specimen with beautiful sharp spessartines of intense color, covering all but the points of glassy and gemmy, transparent smoky quartz crystals. Rarely do you get such elegance and color in both species of the combo, and in pristine condition as well. This remarkably well-trimmed specimen is pristine AND complete 360 degrees all around. Although common in principle in smaller sizes, such superb pieces in this size just are not out there. From a major dealer's personal collection, this was cherrypicked from his many years of travel in China during the heyday for this locality in about 2004-2007 (production now is much reduced). It is a stunnign specimen, and the photos simply do not fully convey its full impact in person.

For a short time in the mid-2000s, a flood of beautiful, cityscape spessartine garnet crystals came out of this mine. They are all gone now, pretty easily absorbed by the market. In that time, I saw thousands of pieces. I saw only a few dozen larger pieces that ever really caught my eye, and I bought and sold a number of them. Then, recently, I was shown this piece which was held back in the private collection of a gem dealer who imported many of the first garnet specimens (and so this dates from the earlier portion of the finds around 2005). It is very lustrous, very sharp, and complete all around. It is a floater, with some small white quartz crystals attached at the bottom (and they are also complete). At 850 grams, and over 4 inches across, it is quite simply one of the best large pieces to come from this series of pockets which should be rememberd as one of the great surprising Brazilian finds of its time. Although the photos are good, it is hard to convey the sheer dimensionality of the piece. The lighting used shows its color in normal light, but it glows red on the edges when more strongly lit. Overall, an important, large, and someday classic Brazilian gem crystal. Joe Budd photos