Spinel on matrix

A superb small cabinet display specimen featuring a very good-sized free-standing octahedral crystal of beautiful reddish-pink Spinel with very sharp, highly lustrous faces and textbook form flaring out of sold white marble matrix. The Spinel crystal is completely undamaged and it's NOT repaired, which is significant, as the vast majority of Spinels from this locality are glued back on the matrix. The color is beautiful in person, and the crystal shows excellent gemminess / translucency when backlit. You can see in the last photo that the crystal displays a superb deep red fluorescence under UV light.

It's incredibly hard to find a specimen with such a large, fine quality crystal so aesthetically positioned at the ideal point at the top center spot of the specimen, and when you throw in the fact that it's completely undamaged, it makes the piece all the more desirable. If you collect gem crystals, Spinel is one of the great gem minerals in the world, and most collectors do NOT have good representation of this historic and important species in their collections. Don't miss out on this one.

The area around Mogok is world famous for producing the finest crystals and gems of Spinel in the world. Many of these crystals have yielded the most impressive red "Ruby Spinel" gems ever found. Mogok is most likely the site of the discovery of the famous Black Prince's Ruby in the Crown Jewels of the UK. The significance of the stone in the crown is that it was actually revealed to be a giant (170 carat) Spinel, and not a Ruby as had been thought for centuries. Spinels are typically found in opaque, dark crystals, but we were fortunate to pick up a parcel of not only colorful but GEMMY crystals direct from the source!

Specimen #SPINEL111904