Though garnet offers a vast and diverse array of gemstone varieties, spessartite garnet is a rarity within the mineral family. The elusive orange-red hued garnet is a very brilliant gemstone with a high refractive index. This means light travels through the stone and returns to our eyes very quickly. All garnet varieties hold an average gemstone hardness, 7 to 7.5 on the Mohs Scale. It is not as durable as sapphire or diamonds, so if you choose to set a spessartite garnet into one of our custom ring settings, it would need to be worn with care and might not be suitable for everyday jewelry. However, this deep orange spessartite garnet shown here would make a stunning one-of-a-kind right hand ring. This garnet options is currently featured on our online gemstone list, and is just waiting to be made into a custom created masterpiece!
More common garnet varieties, such as almandine and pyrope, are popular garnet options and well known for their dark red and brownish tones. Spessartite’s unique orange hue and above average brilliance make it a very special gemstone. The presence of manganese in this garnet variety’s composition is responsible for its dramatic coloring. Spessartite is one of a small group of gemstones, labeled ideochromatic, who are colored by a fundamental element in their chemical composition rather than by impurities.
Before the twenty-first century, spessartite garnet was a rare gemstone, mostly owned by collectors. The availability of the gemstone changed in 1991 when an important find was made in Namibia and again a few years later in Nigeria. More recently beautiful options have been arriving from Mozambique. In today’s market, spessartite is reasonably plentiful, but experts advise that this is likely to be only temporary.
Let us at Knox Jewelers help you design a custom created piece of jewelry holding the beautiful spessartite garnet featured here or any other available option on our gemstone list!
