Fanta to Mandarin Orange Spessartite Garnet Faceting Rough from a fairly new discovery in Kunar, Afghanistan. You can read our write-up for this material in the Fall 2004 issue of GIA's Gems & Gemology. This material closely resembles the Namibian and better quality Nigerian Mandarin Spessartite Garnet seldom available in the market; however, many of the stones have a VERY subtle Peach overtone unlike anything we have seen before.

Since all Afghan finds are from Primary Deposits almost all of these stones show Crystal faces or natural etching with many showing high external luster. Many of these are nice chunky Crystal Sections with a bright Mandarin Orange color for the most part.

This lot is composed of mostly select rough and most stones in here will produce Eye-Clean to very slightly included finished gems with a little planning and hard work. The largest stone in the center is the only stone that will cut moderately included at best. A few stones do have minor inclusions but we are confident you will take out a stunning finished gemstone from practically every one of these! Our price on this is better than most Nigerian and Namibian dealers for like quality material and we are confident that this will make any experienced Mandarin Garnet connoisseur VERYYYYY happy. Production at this mine is VERY VERY limited and it truly is a miracle that we can offer this material at all!

1. Afghanistan & Pakistan are said to house much of the next centuries new finds of stones. We are trying our best to stay at the forefront of the New Finds but it is becoming extremely difficult with the locals catching on quick. This material floored us the first time we saw it and we are confident it will do the same for you.

2. The color on some of the Mandarin Garnet coming from Afghanistan is just mind blowing and reminiscent of the old Namibian finds! Please note that this is NOT a large find and since this material is coming from a primary deposit at extremely high altitude there is considerably higher expenditure involved in unearthing this material! Don't miss your opportunity to procure some of this material before the mine turns to the same as the Namibian....dry!