Natural Gemstones

Sapphires also occur in shades of orange and brown, and colorless sapphires are sometimes used as diamond substitutes in jewelry. Padparadscha sapphires often draw higher prices than many of even the finest blue sapphires. Recently, more sapphires of this color have appeared on the market as a result of a new artificial treatment method that is called 'lattice diffusion'

The name diamond is derived from the ancient Greek αδάμας (adámas), "proper", "unalterable", "unbreakable", "untamed", from ἀ- (a-), "un-" + δαμάω (damáō), "I overpower", "I tame".

Diamonds are thought to have been first recognized and mined in India, where significant alluvial deposits of the stone could be found many centuries ago along the rivers Penner, Krishna and Godavari. Diamonds have been known in India for at least 3,000 years but most likely 6,000 years.

The normal range of colors in diamonds run from colorless to slightly yellow or brown. "Fancy colors" are those colors outside the normal range, and are found in all colors. The most sought after are colorless, and the more intense "fancy colors", blue, pink and red. Red diamonds are among the rarest of all gemstones, only two are known to exist.

cat’s-eye,  any of several gemstones that, when cut en cabochon (in convex form, highly polished), display a luminous band reminiscent of the eye of a cat; this particular quality is termed chatoyancy. Precious, or oriental, cat’s-eye, the rarest and most highly prized, is a greenish chatoyant variety of chrysoberyl called cymophane; the chatoyant effect is due to minute parallel cavities. Quartz cat’s-eye, the commonest, owes its chatoyancy and grayish-green or greenish colour to parallel fibres of asbestos in the quartz; although it comes from the East, it is often called occidental cat’s-eye to differentiate it from the more valuable oriental (chrysoberyl) cat’s-eye. The two may be distinguished by their specific gravities; chrysoberyl is much denser. Crocidolite cat’s-eye (African cat’s-eye), more commonly known as tigereye (or tiger’s-eye), is quartz that contains oriented fibres of crocidolite that have been replaced by silica. Corundum cat’s-eye is an imperfect star sapphire or ruby in which the star is reduced to a luminous zone.

Tourmaline is one of the most varied and complex gemstones found on earth.  It is extremely attractive and usually has fine attributes for high quality jewelry grade stones, these gemstones usually consist of at least dozen or more elements that all work in concert to create the beautiful hues that Tourmaline can come in.

This semi-opaque blue-green variety of feldspar is named after the Amazon River.

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Yellow or golden yellow quartz is called citrine. Citrine crystals can form together with amethyst or smoky quartz to form ametrine and bi-colored quartz. Citrine and topaz are the birthstones of the month of November.

A ruby is a pink to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum (aluminium oxide). The red color is caused mainly by the presence of the element chromium. Its name comes from ruber, Latin for red. The ruby is considered one of the four precious stones, together with the sapphire, the emerald, and the diamond.

Peridot which is pronounced as Pear-ih doe, is a wonderful gemstone that is not found in many regions of the world.  While known for thousands of years, many times it was incorrectly called Chrysolite.  Peridot is usually noted as a beautiful olive green stone. While other colors such as brown, yellow, yellowish brown and brownish green are available, by the far the most popular and attractive are the olive green colored gemstones.

Smoky or smokey quartz is a brown to black variety of quartz.[1] Like other quartz gems, it is a silicon dioxide crystal. The smoky colour results from free silicon, formed from the silicon dioxide by natural irradiation.

Smokey Quartz is a grounding stone that transmutes negative energies and facilitates your ability to get things done in the practical world. It enhances organizational skills and is good to have around in the workplace or home office.

Garnet is the name which can be applied to six similar mineral species, namely almandine, pyrope, spessartine, grossular, andradite and uvarovite. To further complicate matters, many garnets are actually a combination of these minerals. Rhodolite garnet for instance, is a combination of almandine and pyrope, and is sometimes referred to as pyrope-almandine garnet. There are also many trade names and other commonly used names which only adds to the confusion, such as Rhodolite, Tsavorite, Hessonite, Malaya, Mozambique, Mandarin, Ant-hill, Leuco, Hydrogrossular, Demantoid, Melanite, Topazolite, Thai. Other names such as "cape ruby" are simply misleading and deceptive. Some garnets also exhibit color change and stars.

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It is a fluorine aluminium silicate and comes in yellow, yellow-brown, honey-yellow, flax, brown, green, blue, light blue, red and pink ... and sometimes it has no colour at all. The topaz.

Tanzanite is a relatively new gemstone, discovered in 1967.  It is said that Masai tribesmen walking through the plains of Tanzania came across a stone that was seen to be hit with lightning.  This mineral was Zoisite and the mineral was a beautiful deep blue with a tinge of purple surrounding the center.  This new mineral was later named Tanzanite with the help of Tiffany’s and Co. and from this point on became a favorite of the jewelry marketplace.

The soft pink variety of quartz, generally cloudy, or milky in appearance due to minute inclusions of foreign substances. It's somewhat more rare than other varieties of quartz.

From the light blue of the sky to the deep blue of the sea, aquamarines shine over an extraordinarily beautiful range of mainly light blue colours. Aquamarine is a fascinatingly beautiful gemstone. Women the world over love it for its fine blue shades which can complement almost any skin or eye colour, and creative gemstone designers are inspired by it as they are by hardly any other gem, which enables them to create new artistic cuts again and again.

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Carnelian (also sometimes referred to as cornelian) is found primarily in India, as well as various sites in South America. It is a variety of chalcedony. The most favorable pieces are a deep red to red-orange hue. Carnelian has a long and storied past, and was once considered strictly the property of the noble class. People holding a high social status were often buried with this gem stone.

Sapphire is a gemstone variety of the mineral corundum, an aluminium oxide (α-Al2O3). Trace amounts of other elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, copper or magnesium can give corundum blue, yellow, pink, purple, orange or greenish color. Chromium impurities in corundum yield a red tint, and the resultant gemstone is called a ruby.

Opal is one of the most attractive stones and with its wonderful traits and variety of deep, rich colors that it comes in, it has become one of the more popular gemstones of our time.

Pink quartz is a rose-red variety of clear quartz, rarely found as crystals, but usually in massive sized shards.  Clear pink quartz exhibits a somewhat greasy luster.  The pink from the crystal comes from manganese.  Pink quartz becomes paler on exposure, so to improve the color, leave the stone in a damp place.  In nature, pink quartz is often cracked, so it is a pleasure to find a nice piece of pink quartz intact, and makes them more valuable.  Pink quartz comes from many places around the world, but the best quality can be found in Oxford County, Maine and the Black Hills in the United States, the Urals, Brazil and Ceylon.  Pink quartz is almost always milky and shows little dichroism.  The physical characteristics of pink quartz are as follows:

Sky Blue Topaz is a form of Topaz with a blue color center. Topaz is generally colorless and found in moderate quantities all over the world, it is an aluminum fluorosilicate. While Blue Topaz is perhaps the most popular type of Topaz, Topaz does come in a wide range of colors. Topaz can be found in colors such as yellow, brown and brownish green. Topaz can also come in Imperial Topaz colors. Imperial Topaz colors include the colors pink, orange, violet and the rarest of all red

The moonstone is characterised by an enchanting play of light. Indeed it owes its name to that mysterious shimmer which always looks different when the stone is moved and is known in the trade as 'adularescence'. In earlier times, people believed they could recognise in it the crescent and waning phases of the moon.

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Pearls are characterized by their translucence and lustre and by a delicate play of surface colour called orient. The more perfect its shape (spherical or droplike) and the deeper its lustre, the greater its value. Only those pearls produced by mollusks whose shells are lined with mother-of-pearl (e.g., certain species of both saltwater oysters and freshwater clams) are really fine pearls; pearls from other mollusks are reddish or whitish, porcellaneous, or lacking in pearly lustre. Jewelers commonly refer to saltwater pearls as Oriental pearls and to those produced by freshwater mollusks as freshwater pearls.

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Emerald refers to the green variety of beryl. There are however, gem quality green beryls which are not emeralds. All emeralds contain inclusions, which are evidence as to the genuineness of the stone. The name is derived from the Greek word Smaragdos, meaning "green stone". Emerald is the birthstone of the month of May.

Color in gemstones breaks down into three components: hue, saturation, and tone. Hue is most commonly understood as the "color" of the gemstone. Saturation refers to the vividness or brightness or "colorfulness" of the color, and tone is the lightness to darkness of the color. Blue sapphire exists in various mixtures of its primary (blue) and secondary hues, various tonal levels (shades) and at various levels of saturation (vividness).

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Green quartz is known for its lemon, lime color. Commercially available green quartz is either lab treated or naturally heated colorless quartz or green amethyst. Naturally heated green quartz (amethyst heated in the earth) takes on a deep green, while lab treated green quartz is generally a lighter lime green. Green quartz is artificially produced by heating amethyst of only particular locations such as from Brazil. Green quartz is synonymously called green amethyst. Usually amethyst turns brown, yellow or orange when lab treated, so green quartz is a more rare color for quartz. On Moh's Scale of Hardness, green quartz is a 7, so it is a durable gemstone.

Blue Topaz is a form of Topaz with a blue color center. Topaz is generally colorless and found in moderate quantities all over the world, it is an aluminum fluorosilicate. While Blue Topaz is perhaps the most popular type of Topaz, Topaz does come in a wide range of colors. Topaz can be found in colors such as yellow, brown and brownish green. Topaz can also come in Imperial Topaz colors. Imperial Topaz colors include the colors pink, orange, violet and the rarest of all red

Rhodolite is a purplish red variety of garnet that has been used since ancient times. The name rhodolite is Greek, meaning rose stone. During the Middle Ages, garnet was regarded as a gem of faith, truth and constancy. All garnets have been associated with blood related topics, such as remedies for hemorrhages. Asiatic tribes fashioned bullets out of garnets, instead of lead, as they believed the garnet bullets were more deadly. As late as 1892, the Hanzas used garnet bullets against British troops.

This Yellow Sapphire Gemstone in the A Grade Displays a Light to Medium Yellow Color, is Eye Clean with Excellent Brilliance, a Good Cut, Polish.

Lemon quartz is the lemon yellow variety of quartz. It is more lemon in color than a citrine, which has tones of orange in it. Citrine and Amethyst are both in the quartz family of gemstones. Some people mistakenly call prasiolite lemon quartz -- prasiolite has a green tone in it, and is also called green amethyst. It is also known as green gold or lemon citrine.