Virginia Spessartines are some of the most recognized Spessartines from the United States second only to, maybe, the the Little Three Mine in California because so few came out and it was so long ago that people have forgotten. Certainly, these were famous and well known on the East Coast in the 1800s, even if forgotten nowadays. They are incredibly rare, especially with any verifiable provenance and this one is quite large for the locality! This stone has a very nice, rich, reddish-orange hue (from a high Manganese content) as is often seen in crystals from this area. It's just over an inch and a half in its largest dimension, very lustrous, translucent through much of it and more transparent at the edges where it reveals its beautiful color. It shows crystal faces on the display front that reveal intricate geometric growth patterns. These Spessartines are becoming nearly impossible to obtain and are rarely seen on the market. From the collection focus on East Coast classics within the large collection of George Elling, from one of the many older collections he purchased over decades of purchasing and high grading from previous collections.