Spessartite, Mandarin Garnet

GARNET is the birthstone for the month of January. Spessartite garnet was introduced to the world about 200 years ago. It was discovered in the mid 1800's in Spessart, Bavaria. For decades, perhaps the best known spessartite source was the Little Three Mine and Hercules Mine, located in San Diego, California. Once a rare collector's gem, the brilliant orange garnet started to grow in popularity in 1990's, after the discovery of deposits in Namibia and later Nigeria. Today, the Spessartite is one of the most popular of all garnets. It is highly desired by collectors, jewelry designers and gem lovers.

NOTE: Stones on this page were photographed under 5000 Kelvin "daylight" lighting.
For maximum color accuracy, descriptions were made in north-facing natural daylight,
indoors, between 11am-2pm, at 32.89°N latitude.

COLOR: Wherever possible, a similar Pantone Color Card number has been used, NOT the Pantone colors online,
which necessarily use RGB approximations, are grayer, and not at all the same.
Since color is so subjective to lighting conditions, and light is in turn subjective to location,
descriptions and pictures are intended to give a general idea of actual color.
To know what these stones really look like, there is no substitute for seeing them in person.