Purple Garnets from East Africa

Abstract

During the June 2015 JCK gem and jewellery show in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, news circulated about some attractive new purple garnets from East Africa. Gem dealer Geoffrey Watt (Mayer & Watt, Maysville, Kentucky, USA) had an intense purple 3.87 ct cushion (Figure 5, centre), which was one of two faceted purple garnets that he bought from a Sri Lankan cutter at the 2015 Tucson gem shows. The cutter said he had purchased the rough material in Tanzania. Later, shortly before the JCK show, a 5.86 ct intense purple garnet was faceted by Jeff White ( J.L. White Fine Gemstones, Kingsport, Tennessee, USA; see cover of this issue). Subsequently White cut nine more of these garnets, ranging from ~2 ct to 13.31 ct. He purchased the rough from Steve Ulatowski (New Era Gems, Grass Valley, California, USA), who obtained the material in March–April 2015 while on a buying trip to Arusha, Tanzania. His supplier initially told him that the source was Tanzania, but he subsequently confirmed that the material actually came from Catandica, Mozambique. (This also may apply to the origin of Watt's garnet.) Ulatowski noted that the pieces appeared alluvial and were irregularly shaped with a pitted surface texture. After several buying trips to Arusha and Bangkok through October 2015, Ulatowski obtained a total of 1 kg of this garnet (only selecting the better-quality material), commonly in pieces weighing around ½ g each.

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