A Tale of Two Garnets

Mineral Matters #466

There are no rubies at Ruby Mountain, Nathrop, Chaffee County, Colorado, USA.

What you can find is garnets, specifically spessartine garnets.

I have two in my collection. Both are quite different, and both have different journeys.

The first is a dark red garnet crystal, a single one on the matrix. This originally belonged to Tasmanian mineral collector, Mark Hallam, and has been in my collection for over 30 years. It was probably collected by American collector, Ted Johnson.

The second has a couple of orange garnet crystals on colourless quartz crystals, and the matrix fluoresces a pale pink under shortwave ultraviolet light. This specimen was collected by the late Charles Willett from Virginia. In his later years, Charles sold much of his collection on eBay in lots. I was lucky to get a few. He used to send the specimens in interesting home-made cardboard boxes covered in newspaper comics amongst other things!

Apparently, the site is now off-limits to collectors.

Below: Mark Hallam spessartine, Ruby Mountain, Nathrop, Chaffee County, Colorado, USA. Width of view 6mm. Click on the image for a higher resolution version.

Below: Charles Willett spessartine, Ruby Mountain, Nathrop, Chaffee County, Colorado, USA. Width of view 3mm. Click on the image for a higher resolution version.

Below: The outside of one of Charles Willett’s boxes.