Sugilite Specimen 2.8cm 9g RARE

Rare Sugilite Crystals on Matrix, N’Chwaning III, South Africa. Size: 2.8 x 2.8 x 0.9 cm. Weight: 9 grams

Sugilite is named after Ken-ichi Sugi, a Japanese geologist who first discovered the material in 1944 on a Japanese island, where it occurs as small brownish yellow grains on host rock. It was discovered in South Africa in 1979 in the Northern Cape. In South Africa, sugilite formed deep in the earth in beds of manganese-rich metamorphic rocks that are the remains of magma. These strata-bound manganese deposits (Kalahari manganese fields Northern Cape Province), are the largest, richest manganese deposits in the world.

It was officially classified as a rare gem in 1980. In the early 1980s, sugilite was marketed under tradenames such as “Royal Hazel”, “Wesselite” and “Lavulite”, but none of these caught on. By the mid-1990s, known reserves at the Wessels Mine were exhausted, and no additional material has been found since. In recent years, high demand for sugilite in China exhausted stock from most mineral dealers, and prices escalated rapidly. By 2015 it had become nearly impossible to find any sugilite specimens at other than ridiculously high prices.

In 2013, a small find at the Wessels Mine produced well-crystallized specimens. This new material occurred in masses of hair-like crystals in thin veins only, but sugilite crystals are even rarer than the massive material, so this was a very important discovery.  Specimens that were found featured colorful, bright lavender sugilite in fibrous crystals with a silky sheen. These fibrous crystals are the rarest form of crystallized sugilite.