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General information

Spessartine (previously named spessartite), first discovered in Bavaria in 1832, is a member of the garnet family of gems. Its colors ranges through a variety of oranges, reds and warm shades of brown but the orange-colored stones are rare. This apparently has very little to do with gemology but is due to the human eye's way of seeing things, with "orange" corresponding to a very limited portion of the rainbow of colors we are able to perceive. In consequence, orange gems, minerals, flowers, birds and fish are all somewhat uncommon.

In East Africa, gem spessartine was first discovered in a small manganese deposit at Archer's Post in the rather wild and dry country north of Mount Kenya. The area is peopled by Somalis, Galla and Samburus and was opened up in 1909 by Geoffrey Archer (later Sir Geoffrey Archer), an extremely tall and imposing man with a forceful personality. Archer's job was facilitated by an accident of history or rather, an accident of prehistory. For north of Archer's Post are a number of ancient water wells, each one a meter (3 feet) or more in diameter and dug through 15 - 20 meters (50 - 65 feet) of solid rock. No one actually knows who dug these wells but local people believed that it was a race of beneficent giants who, messiah-like, would some day return, and Archer seems to have been taken as the first of the returning giants.

The Archer's Post spessartine deposit no longer produces gemstones but anyone who passes through the area will be offered orange or orange-brown rock-fragments which are presented as "amber", an amusing misnomer given that spessartine is among the heaviest of gemstones and amber is one of the lightest.

Our spessartites

The rough spessartites we buy come from various places. These days there are two sources of gem spessartine in East Africa, among the stream-rolled pebbles in the Umba River Valley on the Tanzanian side of the Kenya-Tanzania border and in northern Mozambique, where Swala Gem Traders maintains a full time buying office.

A new source was discoverd very recently in northern Tanzania, close to the Serengeti National Park. A few beautiful 10cts+ pieces were cut from this rough. We should see if this area will produce larger quantities. The quality is certainly good enough.

Chemistry: Mn₃Al₂(SiO₄)³
System: Cubic
Hardness: 7-7.5
Density: 4.14 - 4.20
Ref. Index: 1.79 - 1.81
Birefringence:
Pleochroism: Monochroic

Spessartite on our website:
The 2007 spessartite discovery in northern Tanzania

Spessartite on the Internet
Le grenat mandarin sur le site de l'ICA
Mandarin garnet on the ICA website
Spessartite garnet on Mindat.org
Allaboutgemstones' spessartite page

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