Jet
The source of jet was also trees, for it is a fossilized wood, a close relative of coal. It may be black or dark brown in colour and is very soft. It is a native British gem, and great beds of it once existed near Whitby on the Yorkshire coast. It has been found in […]
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Coral
Like a pearl, coral is formed by an animal separating calcium carbonate from seawater and re-depositing it. In the case of coral this is done by the coral polyp, a primitive plant-like animal which spends its life attached to the coral which its ancestors produced. Millions of certain types of these animals together produce whole […]
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Spinel
The most famous spinel is the large red stone in the British Imperial Crown, usually referred to as the Black Prince’s ruby. In the past red spinels were known as `balas rubies‘, probably because they came from Balasica in India, the area known nowadays as Badakshan. As a result of living under this misnomer for […]
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The list of transparent stones which have been faceted and set in jewellery is endless, and many of them are unlikely to come the way of the majority of members of the public. There are, however, a number that warrant a mention, and they are grouped together in this section.
Peridot
Oscar Wilde described the green of […]
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Artificial pearls
Since the sixteenth century or perhaps even earlier pearls have been simulated by coating glass beads with a lacquer in which fish scales were suspended. There is a seventeenth- century reference to men fishing in the Thames who ‘take the fish merely for their scales which they sell to make beads‘.
These artificial pearls are […]
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Though all cultured pearls, with the exception of the Biwas, consist of a nucleus over which an oyster has deposited layers of nacre, there are great differences in quality and colour and these affect the price that is asked by the farmer and ultimately by the jeweller. After the pearls have been beached they are […]
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Pearls have also been found in other kinds of shellfish, giant clams for example. The common conch, found along the coast of Florida and in the West Indies, yields pearls of a lovely pastel pink colour, the same colour as the lining of this univalve’s shell. There is only one other species, however, which over […]
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The scale of the pearl fishing industry by the early part of this century is indicated by the fact that some 85,000 people then earned their livelihood from the trade in Ceylon alone. Whole islands in the South Seas were also devoted to the dangerous business of diving and collecting oysters, but since the Japanese […]
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History and origins
Pearls have been worn by women for thousands of years. The oldest surviving pearl necklace is in the Louvre in Paris, and was found with the body of a Persian princess near Susa where she lived in the fourth century s c. Pearls had, however, already been treasured in China and India for […]
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Birthstones have ancient origins and even today wearing your birthstone is thought to bring luck. Particular gems were in earlier times connected to the twelve zodiacal periods though they are now ordered into calendar months; this has resulted in some discrepancies between different jewellers’ lists of birthstones, but they have been standardized as follows. Alternatives […]
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