How do you care for spessartine garnet?

It rates 7 to 7.5 on the Mohs scale. Clean it with warm water and a soft cloth, and keep it out of ultrasonic tanks and steamers.

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Spessartine Garnet

Q: What is often mistaken for spessartine garnet?

Hessonite garnet. Hessonite is lighter in the hand, usually shows a roiled whisky in water turbulence inside, and is a touch softer. Spessartine is cleaner, more vivid and markedly denser..

The mandarin garnet trade was created by one remote find.

Nesosilicate (garnet group, pyralspite series)CaliforniaSee treatment disclosure

Spessartine Garnet is nesosilicate (garnet group, pyralspite series), Mn3Al2(SiO4)3. In the hand, it rates 7 to 7.5 on the Mohs scale, and it runs vivid orange and orange red. Spessartine is a strong orange to reddish orange with no purple in it, which separates it at a glance from the red garnets.

Family

Nesosilicate (garnet group, pyralspite series)

Mohs

7 to 7.5

System

Cubic (isometric)

Luster

Vitreous to resinous

Gravity

3.80 to 4.25

Light

Transparent to translucent

What it is

The geology.

Spessartine Garnet carries the formula Mn3Al2(SiO4)3. It belongs to the cubic (isometric) system. It is classified as nesosilicate (garnet group, pyralspite series).

It sits at 7 to 7.5 on the Mohs scale. The surface reads vitreous to resinous. Light behaviour is transparent to translucent. Specific gravity runs 3.80 to 4.25. The streak is white. It breaks with no cleavage; uneven to conchoidal fracture.

Spessartine is a strong orange to reddish orange with no purple in it, which separates it at a glance from the red garnets. Many stones carry wavy, shredded looking liquid feathers that are easy to see with a loupe and sometimes visible unaided. It is one of the densest common garnets, so it feels noticeably heavier than a topaz or citrine cut to the same size.

You will most often meet it as euhedral dodecahedra and trapezohedra, crystal clusters on pegmatite matrix, faceted gems or cabochons and tumbled stones.

Where it comes from

The origins.

Spessartine forms in granite pegmatites, granites and rhyolites, and in skarns and manganese rich rocks altered next to igneous intrusions. Documented localities include Aschaffenburg in the Spessart Mountains of Bavaria, Germany, which gave the mineral its name; the Ramona and Pala districts of San Diego County, California; the Rutherford mine in Amelia County, Virginia; Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil; the Gilgit district and Baltistan in Pakistan; and Madagascar. Namibia, Nigeria and Tanzania are the main modern sources of gem material.

On value, the database notes: color drives the price, with vivid slightly reddish orange mandarin material at the top and brownish or darkened stones well below it. Clean spessartine above a few carats is scarce, so value rises steeply with size once fine color is present.

What people work with it for

Traditional associations.

As a garnet, spessartine falls under the January birthstone. Its vivid orange has led sellers to connect it with the sacral and solar plexus chakras, with creativity and confidence, and with the element of fire, and it is commonly linked to Aquarius. Its folklore is much shallower than that of the red garnets, because gem quality spessartine was practically unknown in jewelry until the 1990s.

People buy on this language, so it belongs on the page. It belongs under the facts, though, not over them.

What to look for

Spotting the real thing.

Orange glass and synthetic yttrium aluminium garnet are both used as substitutes and are separated by density and by bubbles or curved growth in the glass. The bigger issue is loose naming: mandarin garnet properly refers to material that is overwhelmingly spessartine, but the term and the newer Fanta garnet label are often stretched to cover malaia and other pyrope spessartine blends that are chemically different and cheaper. Spessartine is also passed off as, or confused with, padparadscha sapphire and imperial topaz, both of which carry far higher prices.

Looks like	How to tell them apart
Hessonite garnet	Hessonite is lighter in the hand, usually shows a roiled whisky in water turbulence inside, and is a touch softer. Spessartine is cleaner, more vivid and markedly denser.
Imperial topaz	Topaz has one direction of perfect cleavage and is doubly refractive, so back facet edges look doubled and chips break flat. Spessartine has no cleavage and shows no doubling.
Orange sapphire	Sapphire is doubly refractive and pleochroic, harder at Mohs 9, and shows doubled facet edges. Spessartine stays a single color as it turns.

Check it yourself

At-home tests.

You can run every one of these at a kitchen table. Good light matters more than gear when you are looking at spessartine garnet.

Test	What you should see
Under a loupe	Look for wavy, shredded liquid feathers with a loupe, which are characteristic of spessartine from Sri Lanka and Brazil.
By eye	Check back facet edges for doubling; spessartine is singly refractive and shows none, unlike topaz, sapphire or zircon.
By weight	Heft it against a same size citrine or topaz, since spessartine is roughly a third denser and the difference is easy to feel.
By eye	A hand spectroscope shows strong manganese absorption lines in the violet and blue, which is the standard confirmation for spessartine.

If these checks leave you unsure, that is what appraisers are for. Do not file, heat or soak a piece to find out.

How to live with it

Care & handling.

At 7 to 7.5 on the Mohs scale it stands up to everyday wear. It will still chip on a hard knock, so treat edges and points with respect.

It breaks with no cleavage; uneven to conchoidal fracture, which is worth knowing before you set it or drop it.

Most damage happens during cleaning, not wearing. Avoid steamers, ultrasonic tanks and anything from under the sink.

Pairs well with.

For the serious reader

A deeper look.

Extended detail on composition, sourcing, authentication and market value.

The physical record

The formula on record is Mn3Al2(SiO4)3. Crystal system: Cubic (isometric). Specific gravity: 3.80 to 4.25. Streak: White. Cleavage and fracture: No cleavage; uneven to conchoidal fracture.

How it reaches the market

What it gets confused with

Hessonite garnet: Hessonite is lighter in the hand, usually shows a roiled whisky in water turbulence inside, and is a touch softer. Spessartine is cleaner, more vivid and markedly denser.. Imperial topaz: Topaz has one direction of perfect cleavage and is doubly refractive, so back facet edges look doubled and chips break flat. Spessartine has no cleavage and shows no doubling.. Orange sapphire: Sapphire is doubly refractive and pleochroic, harder at Mohs 9, and shows doubled facet edges. Spessartine stays a single color as it turns..

What it is worth

Color drives the price, with vivid slightly reddish orange mandarin material at the top and brownish or darkened stones well below it. Clean spessartine above a few carats is scarce, so value rises steeply with size once fine color is present.

Where buyers get caught

One more thing

The mandarin garnet trade was created by one remote find. The first stones were recovered in 1991 from mica schist along the Kunene River on the Namibia and Angola border, and the deposit was worked out within a few years.

From the Beyond Bohemian library

An education-first guide.

There is nothing to buy on this page. Spessartine Garnet is not part of our catalogue, and the guide is here anyway because somebody searching the name deserves a straight answer.

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