What exactly is the Mandarin Spessatite and how rare is it? Most people mistake a garnet to be in a typical red or reddish brown tones. However, the garnet family is fairly large. Some examples of garnets used in fine jewellery:
Tsavorite garnets (Green colour)
Malaia garnets (pink, peach, salmon, pink-purple colours)
Demantoid garnets (green, olive green, green-yellow colours)
Rhodolite garnets (berry, wine colours)
Mandarin garnets (orange, yellow-orange, orange-brown, reddish-orange colours)
The base colour of Mandarin Spessatites is orange, often times, with a yellow, brown or red modifier. Resulting in a colour that is yellowish-orange, orange with brown overtone or orange with red overtone. These colours can look nice but the best colours of the Mandarin garnets come in pure orange, with very little hint of any secondary modifier, resulting in people/consumers requesting for a “fanta” orange. Meaning the orange seen in the actual orange fruit. A zesty, bright, fiery orange. The area in Namibia that produced this brilliant, zesty, fiery “fanta” orange Spessatite was quickly mined and depleted in a very short span of 5 years. This mine is now closed. And with that, the production of “fanta” orange has also ceased, driving the prices for “fanta” orange through the roof, making this shade of orange the most prized hue in Mandarin garnets.
Want to see more Mandarin Spessatites and similarly beautiful jewellery creations?
Mandarin Spessartites: A collector’s gemstone
https://www.katerinaperez.com/articles/collectors-stones-the-spessartite-garnet
A special commission for a Mandarin Spessatite cocktail ring in a design that stands out in colour and is suitable for regular wear. It was super fun to make and below is definitely a fun piece to wear. Not your conventional gemstone with diamond ring but in a super stand-out colour surrounded by all-black gold and gemstone setting.
