I recently received several pieces of rough from a fellow faceter who purchased the pieces from a dealer in Nigeria as spessartine garnet. Once she received and inspected the parcel she was quite skeptical, and rightly so. The material was clearly synthetic orange corundum. The perpetrators had gone to some trouble to fracture the material and cut some rough faces on various parts of the periphery, but the true nature of the material was quite obvious with R.I. 1.762-1.770, S.G. of 4.00, dull red LW fluorescence, characteristic spectra and the observation of Plato lines when immersed in diiodomethane with crossed polars under magnification.

An un-natural color, clear anisotropy and distinct dichroism are the most obvious traits of the material. Once again, buyer beware!