Garantus is the stuff of royalty.
This 29-inch necklace is jewelry at its finest. It sparkles with more than 75 carats of rare, perfect and perfectly cut garnets.
Those multicolored garnets were found all over the world, including Arizona, in the last 13 years and are now encased in 3 pounds of platinum.
It took more than 400 hours to construct and is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. To call this a “necklace” is to practically insult it.
“It’s insane, unheard of,” said Mary van der Aa, the designer and one of the artists who created it.
“It shows every color of rare garnets. It’s a necklace that was made from the garnets Todd (Wacks) collected over 13 years, so they are the best, most exceptional, rarest garnets on Earth.”
Wacks — known as “Tucson Todd” — found and cut the gems. Working with precious stones is hard work.
“It’s a lot of work under microscopes,” Wacks said.
Get a peek at Garanatus as well as other pieces at the Tucson Gem and Fine Mineral Show, running Friday, Jan. 26, to Friday, Feb. 9, at the Tucson Fine Mineral Gallery Downtown.
Two special exhibits are planned there: UK Mining Ventures will showcase 50 years of fluorite specimen production from the Rogerley Quarry in England and on Friday, Feb. 2, collector Gene Meieran will show his Uruguayan amethyst specimans and geodes.
Talks about the history of the show, the value of museums and women in mining, among others, are also scheduled to take place during those two weeks. Get tickets to the talks at eventbrite.com.
Garanatus can be found in the Tucson Fine Mineral Gallery, alongside the prestigious Patrick Dreher of Dreher Carvings. It is for sale by auction and the pair are hoping the Smithsonian or another museum will want to own it.
Wacks and van der Aa are bringing Garanatus from the American Gem Trade Association (AGTA), the final authority in colored gemstones and cultured pearls, where it won two AGTA Spectrum Awards. The organization named the piece first in the category of 2023 Best Use of Platinum and Color Men’s Wear and 2023 Best Use of Platinum and Color.
Van der Aa became interested in jewelry design after she took a job at a jewelry store as a sales associate. She liked dressing up and selling, never intending to design. Fate had other things in mind.
“(The jeweler) would do beautiful work so the customers would come in and they would be like, ‘I have these stones,’ and I would design something and he would make it,” she said. “I was in my thirties, actually, when I realized that was what I wanted to do, to make the pieces myself.”
After her time at the jewelry store, van der Aa attended the Gemological Institute of America in California, which is where she became passionate about crafting her designs. Working with a torch can be daunting, but van der Aa forged ahead, creating jewelry out of sterling silver and lower-priced gems like agate and jasper.
She has since worked her way up to platinum.
Wacks comes from a jewelry family. He is the second generation of local jewelers. Some might know his family’s store, Park Avenue Jewelers. He also attended the GIA, which is where he met van der Aa. It was there that he saw a hole in the gem market.
“I realized there was a huge gap on the manufacturing side,” he said. “From the mine to the jewelry store, they didn’t teach you much about who did that process.”
He met others who were involved in gem cutting, found a teacher and discovered he really liked that part of the business.
“Once I started cutting I never looked back,” Wacks said.
The partners are also showing other pieces at the Pueblo Gem and Mineral Show in Room 107 at the Ramada, 777 W. Cushing Street. They are among nearly 300 vendors but they encourage people to come look and buy. In fact, Wacks said, all the hotels west of I-10 have bargains to offer.
“We’re open all day to the public for about two weeks,” he said. “I think a lot of people don’t really come over there but there’s seriously a lot of deals that you can find there.”
He added guests shouldn’t feel intimidated or pressured to buy.
“We have a lot of jewelry that’s less than $1,000 and then we have a lot of stones starting at $25,” van der Aa said. “We have trays of stones people can look through for $25 all the way up to real collectible stones. We try to have something for everybody.”
They want to share their knowledge and maybe even spark an interest in collecting precious and semi-precious stones.
“If you just want to come learn about all the different colors of garnets (for example), we never pressure,” she said. “We never push people. I don’t want anyone to buy it unless they love it.”
Tucson Gem and Fine Mineral Show
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily from Friday, Jan. 26, to Saturday, Feb. 10
WHERE: Tucson Fine Mineral Gallery, 465 W. St. Mary’s Road
COST: Visit website for charge
INFO: www.tucsonfineminerals.com
Pueblo Gem and Mineral Show
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 25, through Tuesday, Feb. 6
WHERE: Ramada Tucson Conference Center, 777 W. Cushing Street
COST: Free
INFO: www.pueblogemshow.com
This article appears in Jan 18-25, 2024.
