Be sure to link to our gemstone and shell pages - Home Page Link to see how the stones and shells described below are designed with sterling and gold-filled findings or in strands to make beautiful and unique necklaces, earrings and bracelets. 

Gemstones are one of nature's rarest products. The three attributes that a gemstone must possess are rarity, beauty and color. Even in prehistoric times, people were attracted to pretty pebbles, and when combined with translucency or even transparency with color, they were highly prized. See pictures below.

Its color is a gemstone's most important and individual characteristic. The color should be rich - not so pale as to give the stone an anemic appearance, nor so deep as to make it look dark or even black, particularly in artificial light. Too dark a color reduces transparency and a stone should retain a lively look with some sparkle, which is achieved by skillful cutting and faceting. In many stones the distribution of color is uneven. When this results in clear divisions, as with tourmalines or agates, this is a much sought after effect. The blending of the various colours or tints of the same color and the various designs and patterns produced as they are by nature, give such stone an individual appeal that makes each one unique. See examples and pictures below.

Another sought after quality is a high lustre. Amber and some garnet have a resinous lustre, while turquoise is sometimes described as "waxy". Lustre does not give a stone brilliance. In certain gemstones brilliance is produced by the skillful cutting of the stone's facets in such a way that they reflect light like mirrors, making the whole stone bright and shining when viewed from the top.

These are the main characteristics which give gemstones their unique appearance and which distinguish them from the great mass of other minerals. There is, however, a most important attribute which gemstones should posses: permanence.

Some stones have a cat's eye and star effect.

Cat's Eye (See Home Page)Cat's eye's are caused by extremely fine hollow channels traversing the stone at right angles to the line. In most species the 'eye' is caused by solid fibrous crystals and is therefore coarser and more diffuse. Accurate cutting is required to place the line exactly in the middle of the stone; oddly, the half that is nearer the light looks darker than that further away.

These are produced in stones cut as cabochons with a rounded top, by fibrous crystals or channels within the stone. These inclusions give the stone a moving line of light across its centre (cat's eye) or, when two or more such lines intersect in the middle, the appearance of a four, six, or even twelve-rayed star. Tiger Eye, (See Home Page) technically called Chatoyant Quartz due to the fibrous structure. It has iron oxide that gives it wavy, golden brown stripes, or a "cat's eye" effect.

Some jewels have a history which can be traced back over hundreds and even thousands of years. In constant daily wear they are exposed to much greater risks than when they were safely embedded in their original rocks. They must, therefore, be able to stand up to the knocks, abrasion and even thought unintentional ill-treatment they sometimes receive.

The most desirable quality under this heading is resistance to abrasion. Less damage is likely to come to them in necklaces and earrings.

The ten standard minerals are known as Mohs' scale. They are:

Feldspars are among the most common rock-forming minerals of igneous formation. Their pale crystals, opaque to translucent, can be seen mixed with other minerals and many other rocks.The gem materials of the feldspar group, or number 6 on the hardness scale and they should therefore not be exposed to hard wear. Moonstone (See Home Page) is in this category. Moonstones occur in a variety of colors including gray, blue, green, brown, yellow and white. Moonstones are usually cut as cabochons in such a way as to display the sheen to best advantage and are set in necklaces and earrings. They are also made into beads. Aventurine (See Jewelry Box 1 Page) and Adventurine has fine platelets of hematite, an iron oxide. Labradorite is also in the feldspar group. Labradorite is usually dark gray in color but if viewed from the right angle, suddenly flashes into bright colors. It comes from Labrador, Canada.

Garnet (See New Items Page) is an extremely popular burgundy-red gemstone and is not particularly rare. All garnets are silicates of two metals. They can be fully transparent to opaque. The name 'garnet' derives from the Latin granatum, or pomegranate. There are 6 garnet varieties and five of them are used as gemstones.

Jade has been held in high esteem since Neolithic times both for its pleasant color and its toughness in use. The name 'jade' is derived from the Spanish pietra d'ijada or colic stone; it was once regarded as a potent medicine. In China, where jade has been venerated for thousands of years, over a hundred different names are in use for different color varieties. Imperial jade is transparent;it is prized by the Chinese above all other gemstones. It is so clear that it is possible to read print easily through a good specimen.

Lapis Lazuli - (See Jewelry Box 2)is another stone that has been in high favor for ornamental purposes over thousands of years. The ancient civilizations of Sumer, India, Egypt and China all esteemed it greatly and some archaeological finds have proved that its deposits, in remote parts of Afghanistan, have been worked for more than 6,000 years. It is popular due to its intense blue color which is utterly resistant to fading in sunlight. Lapis lazuli is a rock rather than a mineral. Its blue constituents are supplied by an isomorphous series of aluminum silicates. Lapis lazuli also contains white or gray calcite, yellow metallic specks of pyrite and minor mixtures of other minerals. The name of this stone seems to have originated in the Middle Ages: 'lapis' means stone and 'lazuli' is derived from the Arabic word for blue. Some minor deposits of lapis are in Siberia; in Upper Burma; in the Sawatch Range of Colorado and in San Bernardino County, California.

Malachite, (See Home and Fan Page) with its bands of dark and bright green, is an attractive ornamental material which takes quite good polish in spite of its low hardness of 4. Being quite opaque, it is made into beads, earrings, pendants and a great variety of objets de'art, sometimes of large size. It is copper carbonate. Sometimes it occurs mixed with azurite, (See Fan Page) a closely related blue mineral.

Peridot (pronounced peridow) (See New Items Page) is a transparent popular green gemstone. It contains both iron and magnesium in proportions that vary a little from stone to stone. It is set in necklaces, earrings and looks charming surrounded by small amethysts or garnets.

Silica gems, based on quartz, contain the two most common chemical elements in the earth's crust in combination: the gas oxygen and the non-metallic element silicon in its properties. This family forms the largest group of gemstones, both in the number of varieties and in the quantities mined. It includes one truly precious species, opal, and a large number of semi-precious stones such as jasper. The gemstones can be classified into 3 varieties: quartz, which is transparent cut from a single crystal; translucent varieties covered by the term 'chalcedony', and opal. The crystals of quartz and chalcedony are of exactly the same composition and structure. They differ only in size. The name 'quartz' derives from the German querertz meaning 'crossing ore'. When pure, it is absolutely colorless and is called rock crystal. Quartz has a Mohs' hardness of 7. One type of very popular crystal is Swarovski crystal. Swarovski Austrian Crystal is the finest quality, full-leaded crystal. (See Jewelry Box 1) The crystal is optically very pure, and is faceted with high precision, which creates beautiful prisms. Brilliant colors are added to these crystals to create beads of dazzling beauty and a wide variety of shapes and sizes.

Amethyst ranked among the most precious stones until the eighteenth century when a large South American deposit was found in 1760. Its purple color is thought to be caused by iron and is still very popular.

Carnelian (See New Items Page) is part of the chalcedony family. It is reddish-orange and translucent.

Citrine (See Jewelry Box 1 Page) is the correct name for all yellow and pale brown varieties of quartz. Citrine is the most common yellow stone available. It also has a nice variety of colors.

Another semi-transparent to translucent variety is rose quartz, (See Wedding and Pendant Page) colored a subtle shade of pink by manganese. This is rather rarer than the varieties so far named. It comes from Brazil and from South-West Africa. Curiously, it seldom occurs in well-shaped crystals.

Another type of chalcedony is Agate, which includes moss agate, banded agate, blue lace agate. They have an amazing variety of color.

Topaz crystals have been held in high regard as gemstones from classical times. Most topaz is known for its yellow color. The pink topaz is rare in nature and is usually heat-treated to get its rich color.

Tourmaline shows the widest range of lovely colors of all the gemstones. Every possible hue can be found in this most versatile of all gems. Sometimes the colors come in a multitude of parallel stripes. The profusion of colors is calused by the somewhat complex chemical competition of the stone. It is a borosilicate compound of several different metals which can be present in varying proportions. The properties, particularly the density, can vary considerably. Its crystal structure is constant. It is a fairly hard gemstone (7 to 7 1/2) which can be worn in any form of jewelry. In most stones a light and a dark tint of the main body color are present and the stones can accordingly be cut so as to present either a lighter or a darker shade.

Turquoise (See turquoise and coral page) has been used as an ornament since the dawn of history. Rich necklets and plaques of gold set with turquoise have been found in Egyptian and Sumerian tombs of the fourth millennium BC as well as bead of even greater antiquity. Turquoise is a phosphate of copper and aluminum containing some water and it fills fissures and cavities where rock have weathered in the proximity of copper deposits. Wax or resin is usually added to turquoise after polishing to minimize the danger of loss of color. Some stones are veined with black limonite which is called turquoise matrix. Few gemstones have been imitated as widely as turquoise. Even in ancient Egypt, beads were made from blue faience, a kind of glazed earthenware, which resembles turquoise closely. Other imitations are made from a variety of powders similar to turquoise in composition and either compressed or bonded with plastics.

 Hematite (See Jewelry Box 2 Page) is a common iron ore, black and quite opaque that is sometimes cut into cabochons or carved and even faceted because of its metallic lustre.

Rhodochrosite and Rhodonite (see New Items Page) are crypto-crystalline manganese minerals that can be cut to form cabochons of attractive pink to rose-red shades. Rhodochrosite is the softer (hardness 4) but has the more pleasing colors and designs, being banded with white. Rhodonite with hardness of 6 is much more common; it is darker in tint and has black flecks.

Amber (See Home and Ring Pages) has been held in high esteem for thousands of years because of its warm, golden transparency and the soft lustre it acquires after it is polished. Unlike other minerals, amber is formed from the resin of a (now extinct) species of pine tree and not from the inorganic constituents of the earth's crust. Amber is more appropriately classed among ornamental materials but no account of gemstones would be complete without its inclusion, if only because its popularity and long history. Cloudiness in amber is caused by minute air bubbles. Amber is famous for containing insects other things such as pieces of bark and leaves which became stuck while the amber was still liquid.

Goldstone (See Jewelry Box 3 Page) In an ancient glass factory at Murano near Venice, Italy, molten copper was tipped by accident into a crucible of molten glass. The copper crystallized out in tiny bright triangular crystals forming a melt from which objects scintillating with countless points of golden light could be formed. This is a man-made stone but often classified as a 'gemstone'

Mother of pearl is formed by various salt-water and freshwater molluscs. Mother of Pearl is luminescent and matches any color of clothing.(See Jewelry Box 3 Page)

Coral (See turquoise and coral page) consists of lime deposited by marine polyps. Coral and turquoise are enjoying new popularity.

Mosaic(See Jewelry Box 2 Page) shell is a beautiful blend of natural orange, pink and white in a most pleasing design.

Abalone (See Home Page) is a beautiful multi-colored shell that is cut into various designs of pendants and beads.