GEMS AND JEWELS

What is Aquamarine? Aquamarine is a semi-precious stone which belongs to Beryl family like Emerald. It is derived from Latin word “Aqua Marina” which means “Sea Water”.   It was also said that it can calm the sea storms so people use to keep them while travelling on ships. Aquamarine has a very rich history it was first discovered in 1723 at Adun-Chalon Mountains in Siberia. It was rich with aquamarine and production took peak in 1796 It is found in bluish shade, greenish blue and even colorless. But most valued color is blue which is preferred a lot and even is comparatively expensive. It lies at 7.5 – 8 Mohs Hardness Scale out of 10 . The deep blue version of Aquamarine is also called “Maxixe” & “Santa Maria”. It is found in many places but rich blue is commonly found in Brazil and Madagascar. Blue Topaz is often sold to people by giving it different names like Brazilian Aquamarine, so beware of such fraudulent affair and buy the stone from someone who is authe...

What is Opal? Opal is one of very beautiful and valued stone in the world. Its unique color spectrum of such unique arrangement increase its beauty even more. Opal is a stone of October and is an amorphous form of hydrated Silica. It is found even in cracks of different rocks commonly found with Sandstone, Limonite, Basalt or any other stone in a low temperature deposits. Opal is not much of a hard mineral, it is situated at 5.5 to 6 Mohs hardness scale. It is found in many shades and colors from opaque, translucent, transparent or colorless to black or in dark colors. There are common two types of Opal. Precious opal and Common opal , precious opal shows play of colors whereas, common opal shows none. Play of colors is that when a precious opal is brought in a white light and optical effect occurs that causes flashing of different color lights on the surface of opal. It might show one color, two colors or all seven colors. Opals are found in many countries but the precio...

What is Turquoise? Turquoise also known as Feroza. It is an opaque semi-precious gemstone, a hydrated phosphate of aluminum and copper. It has a very rich history mining from 5000 BC in Persia and 6000 BC Egypt. The word “Turquoise” is a French word meaning “Turkish” , because the stone was brought to Europe through Turkey from Persia. In Iran it’s called “Feroza” which means “Victorious” . In Europe until 13 th century it was called “Callais” word probably from Rome which means “Beautiful Stone”. It is not that hard stone it has Mohs Scale Hardness of 5 – 6 out of 10 so it should be used with lots of care. One of the unique feature of turquoise is that it changes its color depending on the mood of wearer, either gets bright or fades, with the passage of time. It is one of a way to judge either stone is real or not. Turquoise have different shades of blue. Robin’s egg blue without any matrix or rich sky blue color is the most valued shade in turquoise also known as Persia...