The bright orange or reddish-orange garnet known as spessartite is one of the most vivid and brilliant stones in the gems world. But specimens with top color are very rare in large sizes.
The main quality factors are color and clarity. The saturated pure orange is the rarest and most valuable, and this color is often referred to as mandarin orange in the gems trade. Clean specimens in this color are rarely found and almost never seen in large sizes.
A few years ago we were lucky to acquire some top material from a spessartite find in Nigeria that has now been exhausted. We cut an outstanding 12.16 ct oval from some of this material.
This gem is a fully saturated and vivid mandarin orange, with excellent clarity. We graded this gem "almost loupe clean," meaning that minor inclusions can barely be seen under 10x magnification. The gem is beautifully fashioned in a portuguese cut to maximize its brilliance and fire.
View our video below to appreciate the brilliance of this fine gemstone.
This is a completely natural and untreated gem, certified as untreated with color "vivid orange" by GemResearch Swisslab (GRS). This exceptional spessartite was one of the prides of our collection. It was sold to a private collector in January, 2013.
