Like fiery comets against the evening sky, the first mandarin garnets appeared in the gemstone trade a little over ten years ago. Specialists and gemstone lovers all agreed: the magnificent colours and high brilliance of these orange-red treasures are unique. So what kind of gemstones are they, and where do they come from?
Close your eyes and dream a little: Africa. In the north-west of Namibia, the evening sky glows orange-red over quiet hills and a solitary river. The next settlement is some nine hours away by car. Temperatures here are extreme: in summertime they rise to between 40 and 50 degrees Celsius, and in winter they drop almost to freezing-point. Here, far away from civilisation of any kind, the Kunene River has been winding its way through the hills along the border between Namibia and Angola for centuries. At this remote spot, one of the last untouched places on Earth, the first mandarin garnets were discovered in 1991. Embedded in mica and mica schist where they had come into being millions of years before, small crystals of an unusual coour and transparency were discovered, and they immediately attracted the attention of the specialists. The gemmological examination proceeded to confirm initial suppositions: it was a find involving the rare orange gemstone variety known as 'spessartine' from the large, colourful garnet family. Until then, spessartines had been found in Sri Lanka, Upper Burma, Madagascar, Brazil, Australia, Kenya and Tanzania, and yet they were practically unknown in jewellery, catering mainly to the interests of gemstone lovers and collectors. The reason for this rather shadowy existence was a simple one: specimens with really good colour and quality were only found very rarely indeed. The fantastic crystals from Namibia, on the other hand, were of an unusually fine, intensely radiant orange. Some sparkled in the rich reddish-orange of the last light of evening, seen when the sun has already disappeared below the horizon. They were more beautiful and more radiant than anything that had gone before them. And hardly any inclusions interfered with the brilliant image of these 'noble garnets'.
