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Mineral Specimens with Spessartine
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7.1 x 6.5 x 3.2 cm. These new Spessartines are some of the most attractive and highly displayable specimens to come out of China in the last few years. This particular piece features several lustrous, gemmy, reddish-orange trapezohedra with dodecahedral modifications measuring up to 4 mm sitting atop cream colored Orthoclase crystals with gemmy Smoky Quartz crystals. The color in these crystals is a rich orange-red hue and very attractive, and they are not at all dull or pitted. This material is becoming less and less available on the market, and keep in mind that there are only a few worldwide localities that produce this color of Spessartine in fine specimens. Bright orange Spessartine specimens are NOT easy to find these days from any locality. Ex. Brian Kosnar Collection.
8.4 x 6.5 x 5.6 cm. What makes this specimen special is not just the big, gemmy wine-red spessartine (2 cm), but how it is nestled amongst these thick, euhedral books of muscovite, themselves surrounded by EUHEDRAL (not blobby) snow-white albite. The effect is a truly fetching combo specimen.
12.4 x 7.6 x 6.4 cm. Over a dozen gemmy, lustrous, dark red crystals of spessartine on a stark white contrasting matrix of large, EUHEDRAL crystals of albite - with a gemmy quartz crystal sticking out of one side. What makes this specimen nice is the fact that the spessartines are on the lustrous faces of sharply-formed albite crystals rather than nebulous or lumpy albite. The largest spessartine measures 0.8 cm; most are smaller.
9.1 x 2.3 x 2.3 cm. A pristine crystal of smoky quartz, with a silky luster, decorated all the way around with small, gemmy and FLASHY red-orange spessartine garnets!
4.2 x 3.8 x 3.3 cm. A CLASSIC, DESIRABLE and SHOWY California specimen from the famous Little Three Mine. I cannot begin to say how rare unetched crystals in this size range are, especially when emplaced on nice white matrix. This has a 2.0 cm, pristine, gemmy and lustrous, deep orange spessartine garnet is aesthetically perched atop etched albite. A lustrous and striated schorl is encircled at the base by the albite. The schorl has a broken, but healed termination (typical for the locality where the pegmatite is severely fractured and stressed). These are very rare, mostly found in the 1960s and 1970s. This is a competition level miniature, as well as being a classic US mineral from this famous (and for all intents defunct) mine.
5.8 x 4.5 x 3.4 cm. Look at this rare and stunning Madagascar spessartine, with its bright orange color and CANDY-like luster! It sits beautifully isolated in a curve of the matrix that is part of the pocket in which the garnet formed. The crystal measures 1.3 cm.
7.1 x 3.4 x 3.1 cm. Little gemmy orange-red spessartines speckle the surface of one quartz crystal that has wrapped itself around another, both of them terminated - the "outer" one forming multiple terminations around the periphery of the "inner" one.
3.7 x 2.1 x 1.4 cm. You have seen many examples of spessartine on smoky quartz from Tongbei, but this one is really unique, in that the quartz got an opaque white mineral coating before the spessartines grew, giving it a chalky look and creating a really different take on this now familiar combo.
4.6 x 3.8 x 3.0 cm. These new Spessartines are some of the most attractive and highly displayable specimens to come out of China in the last few years. This particular piece features several lustrous, gemmy, reddish-orange trapezohedra measuring up to 4 mm associated with a lustrous, gem quality Smoky Quartz crystal on Orthoclase. The color in these crystals is caused by a high percentage of Manganese with very little Iron content. They are very attractive, and they are not at all dull or pitted. This material is becoming less and less available on the market, and keep in mind that there are only a few worldwide localities that produce this color of Spessartine in fine specimens. Bright orange Spessartine specimens are NOT easy to find these days from any locality.
8.7 x 6.5 x 3.9 cm. Crystals of gemmy spessartine to 0.7 cm, with deep sherry color, richly piled on the matrix and climbing up the sides of a quartz crystal.
10.5 x 9.5 x 4.5 cm. A dramatic CABINET specimen of a LARGE, 4.0 cm, gemmy and lustrous, dark cherry-red, complex spessartine garnet crystal aesthetically set on a large, pearlescent, off-white albite crystal cleavage and nicely accented by lustrous, silver-gray muscovite books. This beauty hails from Shengus, Pakistan and the contacting on the left side of the spessartine is barely noticeable and is certainly not detracting.
4 cm across. A complete floater about the size of a golf ball, sharp and undamaged all around, with GLOWING orange color, especially when backlit! When cleaned, this will have even higher lustre and color saturation. It is so gemmy that you are looking through the entire crystal in parts of this photo, it’s just hard to realize in 2-D!
2.7 x 2.3 x 1.3 cm. A "matrixy" specimen featuring an elongated gemmy spessartine about 2 cm tall and 1 cm thick perched atop a smaller crystal, backed by a bit of matrix; and with the whole piece a great toenail size in full!
2.3 cm across. Just a razor sharp, gemmy, transparent mandarin-orange garnet crystal...incredible color and transparency in person, in fact for the size one of the most gemmy crystals in the lot! It has some minute black inclusions, but they do not detract so much in person - in the photo you are looking through a 1-inch crystal out the back, so it adds up more in the camera's eye than in the human eye. Complete all around all faces, except for minor contact on the two bottom faces only.
3.5 x 3 x 2.5 cm. One of my favorites, a striking miniature with a mandarin-orange, 1 x 1 x 1-inch, translucent to transparent crystal free of internal dark veils, just perched up and popping out form a natural pedestal of a smaller crystal! Complete all around except for one minor ding on the back edge, not seen from the display side in any case. This crystal glows with color when well lit and is one of the few of any matrix style. For overall 3-dimensionality, this was one of my favorites out of literally flats of the material found!
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Rob Lavinsky, rob@irocks.com
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share specimen![Spessartine, Quartz (Var: Smoky Quartz), Orthoclase from Wushan Spessartine Mine, Tongbei, Yunxiao Co., Zhangzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province, China [db_pics/mdpics/MD-146698a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-146698a.jpg)
![Spessartine, Quartz (Var: Smoky Quartz), Orthoclase from Wushan Spessartine Mine, Tongbei, Yunxiao Co., Zhangzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province, China [db_pics/mdpics/MD-146698b.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-146698b.jpg)
![Spessartine, Albite, Muscovite from Shengus (Shingus), Haramosh Mts., Skardu District, Baltistan, Northern Areas, Pakistan [db_pics/mdpics/MD-146887a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-146887a.jpg)
![Spessartine, Albite, Muscovite from Shengus (Shingus), Haramosh Mts., Skardu District, Baltistan, Northern Areas, Pakistan [db_pics/mdpics/MD-146887b.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-146887b.jpg)
![Spessartine, Albite from Shengus (Shingus), Haramosh Mts., Skardu District, Baltistan, Northern Areas, Pakistan [db_pics/mdpics/MD-148080a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-148080a.jpg)
![Spessartine, Albite from Shengus (Shingus), Haramosh Mts., Skardu District, Baltistan, Northern Areas, Pakistan [db_pics/mdpics/MD-148080b.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-148080b.jpg)
![Spessartine, Quartz (Var: Smoky Quartz) from Wushan Spessartine Mine, Tongbei, Yunxiao Co., Zhangzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province, China [db_pics/mdpics/MD-148086a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-148086a.jpg)
![Spessartine, Schorl, Albite from Little Three Mine (Little 3), Ramona District, San Diego Co., California, USA [db_pics/mdpics/MD-148308a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-148308a.jpg)
![Spessartine from Ampanivana pegmatite, Ampanivana area, Andrembesoa Commune, Betafo District, Vakinankaratra Region, Antananarivo Province, Madagascar [db_pics/mdpics/MD-150498a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-150498a.jpg)
![Spessartine from Ampanivana pegmatite, Ampanivana area, Andrembesoa Commune, Betafo District, Vakinankaratra Region, Antananarivo Province, Madagascar [db_pics/mdpics/MD-150498b.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-150498b.jpg)
![Spessartine, Quartz (Var: Smoky Quartz) from Wushan Spessartine Mine, Tongbei, Yunxiao Co., Zhangzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province, China [db_pics/mdpics/MD-150500a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-150500a.jpg)
![Spessartine, Quartz from Wushan Spessartine Mine, Tongbei, Yunxiao Co., Zhangzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province, China [db_pics/mdpics/MD-150529a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-150529a.jpg)
![Spessartine, Quartz (Var: Smoky Quartz) from Wushan Spessartine Mine, Tongbei, Yunxiao Co., Zhangzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province, China [db_pics/mdpics/MD-152450a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-152450a.jpg)
![Spessartine, Quartz (Var: Smoky Quartz) from Wushan Spessartine Mine, Tongbei, Yunxiao Co., Zhangzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province, China [db_pics/mdpics/MD-152450b.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-152450b.jpg)
![Spessartine, Quartz from Wushan Spessartine Mine, Tongbei, Yunxiao Co., Zhangzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province, China [db_pics/mdpics/MD-152680a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-152680a.jpg)
![Spessartine, Muscovite, Albite from Shengus (Shingus), Haramosh Mts., Skardu District, Baltistan, Northern Areas, Pakistan [db_pics/mdpics/MD-152698a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-152698a.jpg)
![Spessartine from Nani, Loliondo, Arusha Region, Tanzania [db_pics/mdpics/MD-153387a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-153387a.jpg)
![Spessartine from Nani, Loliondo, Arusha Region, Tanzania [db_pics/mdpics/MD-153391a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-153391a.jpg)
![Spessartine from Nani, Loliondo, Arusha Region, Tanzania [db_pics/mdpics/MD-153393a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-153393a.jpg)
![Spessartine from Nani, Loliondo, Arusha Region, Tanzania [db_pics/mdpics/MD-153395a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-153395a.jpg)