0.50 ct Orange Garnet-Spessartite - Oval

At 0.5 carats, this spessartite garnet from Nigeria carries its orange color through an oval cut, measuring 6 x 4 x 2.5 mm.

Spessartite is the manganese garnet that owns the orange end of the family, from honeyed tones to the saturated mandarin color collectors chase. Nigeria's gem fields came to prominence in the 1990s and remain a significant source of spessartite and other fine garnet. It is wholly untreated, its color finished by geology rather than by any furnace or enhancement. That is typical of garnet, one of the few gem families that reaches the market almost entirely untreated.

A natural spessartite garnet small enough to wear every day and real enough to mean it, not a lab stone and not glass. Hand-selected and photographed by Caveman Gems in good light, shown as honestly as a screen allows.