Turquoise

Turquoise is a porous, opaque stone that ranges in color from blue to a pale blue-green. In Mexico and the American Southwest, Indians set turquoise in silver for their traditional jewelry. Turquoise with no veining was popular for Victorian jewelry. Pearls surround the domed turquoise stones on the 2 1/4-inch gold pin. It was made […]

Tourmaline

Tourmalines are multicolored, layered stones. Their predominant colors are often shades of pink or green, although they can also be yellow, brown, blue, violet, black, or colorless. While most tourmalines were cut for jewelry or made into beads, flawed stones were sometimes used for small carvings. Watch out for stones that have been dyed a […]

Topaz

The clear yellow brown topaz was very popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Topaz can also be blue, yellow, orange light green, pink, and colorless. Pink topaz is the rarest and most valuable topaz. Blue topaz is the most popular and is also affordable. In the twentieth century, yellow brown topaz was sometimes heated […]

Spinel

Spinel is usually a red stone, but it also occurs in violet, blue, green and black. Until the middle of the nineteenth century it was classed as a ruby, and even now it is sometimes mistaken for that more valuable gem. Photo: Charlton Hall Purple, green, lavender, black, and orange spinel beads form this necklace. […]

Quartz

Quartz is the most common semiprecious stone used in jewelry. It includes a variety of minerals with a similar composition, such as amethyst, rock crystal, smoky quartz, rose quartz, tiger’s eye, quartz cat’s eye, agate, jasper, onyx, and opal.

Rubies and Sapphires

The sapphire and ruby are varieties of a mineral called corundum. Rubies come in many shades of red. People usually think of sapphire as a blue stone, but there are also pink, orange, yellow, green, lavender, and even black sapphires. Modern stones may be synthetic or enhanced.

Pearl

Pearls come in many colors, from various shades of white to pink, green, gold, blue, and even black or orange. Their size ranges from a pinhead to a pigeon egg. Pearls were very expensive jewels owned almost exclusively by royalty and the very rich until the beginning of the twentieth century. That’s when cultured pearls […]

Rock Crystal

The term rock crystal has several meanings, but for jewelry the term means clear, colorless quartz that has been dug from the earth. It is as clear as glass if it is of good quality. True rock crystal feels cold to your hand, even on a warm day, while glass will feel almost room temperature. […]

Peridot

Peridots are clear yellow green, olive green or brownish stones. Sometimes classified as semiprecious stones, they were never very popular except in the late nineteenth century. This ring, made about 1910, has a 1/2-inch square cut peridot and a pierced platinum mounting. It was made in the early 1900s.

Opal

In ancient times the opal was considered a symbol of hope and prosperity. However, since about the seventeenth century superstitious people have considered this multicolored iridescent gem unlucky. Queen Victoria, who wore opal jewelry in order to help the Australian opal miners, brought the gem back into style. They were often used in Art Nouveau […]