Spessartine on Albite (ex Kay Robertson Collection)

Item Description

A lovely older specimen of the lesser seen Afghani Spessartines. This material reminds me of Spessartines from the Little Three Mine in San Diego County. Several sharp, lustrous, gemmy, rich orange colored dodecahedral crystals of Spessartine measuring up to 6 mm are sitting on bladed cream colored Albite matrix. The back of the piece hosts a large gem quality colorless crystal of what could either be more Albite or possibly Spodumene(?). A really interesting and now hard to find specimen that probably dates back a couple decades. Ex Kay Robertson Collection (#12582). Kay is a prominent California collector, who specialized in European classics (see the article in the March-April, 2007 Mineralogical Record and the 50+ page article in the German Magazine "Mineralien Welt" November-December 2017).