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It is easy to feel intimidated and out-of-place when you are visiting a high-class jewelry store for the first time. To avoid making unwanted and uninformed purchases, improve your knowledge about jewelry starting with the tips below. If you speak the same language people in the jewelry industry speak then you all go home with the jewelry piece you want, need, and definitely can afford.

Gemstone Basics

A gemstone may be a rock, mineral, or even a petrified material that is cut and polished to be used for making jewelry. It may even be harvested like pearls or organic material like amber, just as long as it has aesthetic appeal. In the old days, precious gemstones only referred to the Big Three: emeralds, sapphires, and rubies. Everything else was labeled as semi-precious gemstones.
Categories today, however, have changed and expanded to avoid further confusion.

The Ins and Outs of Lapidary
Lapidary refers to the process of cutting and polishing gemstones. Rough materials are left uncut and unpolished. Cobbed materials are referred to as fractured. Materials like silicon carbide and diamond, due to their hardness, are used for cutting gemstones in a progressive abrasion process. Compounds like aluminum and chromium oxide are, on the other hand, used for polishing gemstones.

Common cutting techniques include tumbling, drilling, polishing, lapping, sanding, grinding, and sawing. Cut gemstones are then polished into several forms such as sculptures, intaglios, cameos, mosaics, inlays, spheres, beads, cabochons, and faceted stones.

Sawing
The main tool used in sawing is a copper or steel blade with diamond grit on the edges. Water or oil is used to eliminate cutting debris and prevent the blade and stone from overheating.

Grinding
Diamond-impregnated grinding wheels made of silicon carbide are used to grind gemstones and shape them into a pre-form. Liquid substance is also used to prevent both the stone and tool from overheating.

Sanding
This process is similar to grinding but uses finer abrasives. It is often performed as a follow-up after grinding for removing scratches caused by the previous cutting technique. For round gemstones, a belt sander may be used to ensure smoother and rounder curves.

Lapping
A lap, which is a flat disk that is either vibrating or rotating, is used to create flat surfaces rather than round ones. The process however is similar to sanding and grinding.

Drilling
This technique is used if the lapidarist wishes to create a hole through or in a gemstone. Drilling tools may be rotating or ultrasonic.

Tumbling
A gemstone that is placed in a rotating barrel filled with water and abrasives is tumbled for polishing. These gemstones are usually roughly shaped and the polishing process is gradual and performed with interval washings. Sometimes, vibratory machines are used in lieu of rotating barrels. This way, the barrels vibrate rather than rotate. Tumbling techniques are also used to polish metal jewelry pieces.

Cabochons
Cabbing or cabochon cutting is achieved by gluing or dopping the gemstone into a metal or wooden dopstick or simply holding it in place. The cabbing machine then twirls and creates a round smooth surface top and a flat or slightly rounded bottom for the gemstone. This is usually an alternative to faceting for gemstones that possess too many inclusions.

Faceted Stones
Gemstones that have faceted forms reflect brilliant color and clarity from all sides and at all light levels. This technique is most suitable for transparent stones. Today, new techniques like grooves and concave facets are used to create new styles for faceted gemstones.

Colours of the Rainbow

If you are planning on buying gemstones, you can avail of a variety of colors, shades and shapes to choose from. You name it and you get it. Dressing up is a favorite hobby of every woman and when it comes to gemstone jewelry they are really crazy about it. However each gemstone has some significance attached, so wearing gemstone jewelry is not like wearing ordinary jewelry. Although those who love to wear them as a craze can select the pieces without any inhibitions.

If you choose red then the ruby can be the best option for you. It is available in a range of hues, from purplish and bluish red to orange-red. But if you are really crazy for pure red with no reflection of any other color then you need to spend a little more. Rubies are available in the range of $1,000-$10,000 a carat for sizes under 1 carat.

However, if you are crazy about the ruby but are looking for some alternative, which resembles ruby and is affordable then you can go in for Spinel. Initially, Spinel was confused with the ruby, but now technology is able to differentiate them. In Spinel you get the colors from red to pastel shades of pink. Garnet is also a good alternative for red. You get the shades ranging from pink to purplish red. If you love violet with red then you can choose a garnet for yourself.

The sapphire is a good option for those who are fond of pink. It comes in fancy pink shades and ranges from $600-$4,500 a carat for gems under 2 carats. Other affordable gems that reflect pink are beryls and the emerald. In emerald, there are further two types - Kunzite that is pinkish-violet and morganite that is peachy pink. The prices for these gemstones range from $75-$200 for sizes less than 5 carats.

Orange-Yellow is considered auspicious and more appealing to most of us. So if you are looking for orange or yellow then you get a variety of gemstones that have the Midas touch. Padparadscha sapphire is one of the alternatives for orange, but it is very expensive. This is a very rare gem and it has a dark, orangy

Green



Blue - Violet

Spinel is also a good option as it is available in pastel blue, gray blue, and deep blue color. It usually is priced from $50-$1,000 a carat for sizes under 3 carats. Aquamarine, which comes from the beryl family, is found in the shades of greenish-blue to deep aqua.

Origins Of Different Gemstones
You may be wondering exactly how your jewelry came to be. Well, that is a normal question any jewelry enthusiast would ask. You do question how these gems are placed into metal and you also question exactly where these gems came from.

There are gem stone mines everywhere around the world. The most popular are in Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Uruguay and Africa. There are also mines in Europe and the United States, depending on what kind of gem stone you are looking for.

Amethyst - Amethyst is the most valuable kind of quartz. It is found everywhere around the world. For this very reason, it is one of the most affordable. The quality of amethyst is quite unique, depending on where it was obtained. Amethyst that are found in the United States are larger compared to those found in Africa. However, the latter has higher saturation when it comes to their colors.

Amethysts with the highest saturation are those found in Australia. There are also amethyst found in Brazil that are usually large and have different hues and cuts.

Emerald - Emeralds are mostly found in Mexico. Two main sources are the mines in Guerrero and Vera Cruz. Emeralds found there have a tendency toward lighter shades and are clearer than those found in other countries. The stones have lighter hues and the crystals are phantomed with a transparent interior and a saturated exterior.

Emeralds that are found in Guerrero are saturated dark green. They have a visible termination of their interior color saturation and exterior transparency. The highly saturated emeralds are the most elegant.

Sapphire - The most notable source of Sapphires are those found in Brazil from Minas Gerais, Bahia, Maraba and Rio Grande do Sul. Among those containing the best sapphires are the large pockets that are formed by volcanic material.

The sapphires that are produced here vary in their color saturation ranging from pale up to medium blue. Those that are navy blue are the sapphires that have the highest saturation.

Diamond - Africa is known to be a producer of diamonds, thus the inspiration of the recently released blood diamond. There are diamond deposits in Zambia and Namibia. The diamonds found in Africa can be as large as an egg and are outstandingly clear.

Jade - The United States has various gems. In Maine, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Montana and Colorado, the most popular stone is the Jade. The color is from the medium saturation. It may be smoky or translucent, depending on where it was obtained.

Jade from Maine and North Carolina are usually dark while those found in Montana or Colorado have a green tint.

Now, the next question, how the jewelry is made. Diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, amethysts, and jade are only a handful of precious gemstones out there. Some of them are very valuable because of their rare appearance.

How are these gemstones formed? Well, they are formed underneath the Earth. The process involved varies in each gem stone. The stones react with the minerals, specifically water. This is how they are dissolved. When the solution evaporates and cools down, these minerals are formed.

The water then mixes with the silica-rich rocks like sandstone. This produces the gemstones like amethyst, opals, agates, sapphires, jade and topaz to name a few. When the copper-rich rocks mix with the water, it bears the minerals like turquoise, malachite and azurite.

Emeralds and tourmalines are formed from rain water or the water from cooling bodies like magma that is mixed with the minerals and crystallized in cavities or open cracks. These spaces are filled with minerals which create the hydrothermal deposits needed in the formation of these gem stones.

There are also gemstones that are formed directly from the mantle. They consist of up to 70% of Earths total mass. They are usually made up of magnesium, silicon, iron, oxygen, silicate and aluminum compounds. The upper layer of the Earths mantle has a volume of the olivine which is quite common in the whole procedure.

Whenever you hear the word metamorphic it means the change of form of these rocks. Metamorphic gems are garnet, emerald, ruby, aquamarine, sapphire, onyx and zircon. They are formed over a long period of time because they wait for the rocks to be altered with such pressure and intense heat in order to interact with the other solutions.

The Big 3

Even perhaps more than a tray of loose diamonds, a tray of loose emeralds,rubies and sapphire can always excite a gemologist for hours. A huge benefit of these rare and valuable gemstones is that they are very hard as measured by the international standard Mohs' rating, which takes 10 as most hard and zero least hard. Emerald comes in at an very solid 7-8 hardness, which means any object of art carved from emerald is strong and solid and can be worn with less fear of loss.
Because of the popularity of emerald and ruby and sapphire that many attempts at fraud and miss- representation are on going. The variety of emerald with the highest value has been described as soft fresh cut lawn. Emerald is the green variant of the mineral beryl. It is one of the rarest members of the beryl family, and therefore most expensive and most sought after. Only the red variety of emerald is sometimes more sought and therefore more expensive than the light emerald of Burma.
Burma is the source of the world's finest gems, other than found in a small patch in Colombia, and several isolated locations world wide. Emerald came to be the birth stone of the month of May.The adjacent areas of Thailand, Cambodia, China and India still have many sites of gems, and locals work them diligently as they are found.The light soft green tint in the mineral beryl shows the magnificent emerald off in its finest splendor. Many rich sites for these champions of gemstones are now also found in Australia and Africa.
Also, massive new diamond finds now produce world
class gems in northern Canada. Emerald is a green variety of the mineral beryl. It has a surprisingly hard 7-8 on the Mohs' scale of hardness. Ruby has been known as the gem of gems through Roman times, and it was said to surpass all other precious stones in it's virtue. Ruby is the red variety of the mineral corundum. Ruby is nowadays the fashion ring for July, and seen to be majestic in its compelling nature and over powering draw.
A ruby was historically known as a sign of passion, love, chastity, virtue. Firm friendship can come from the the wearers wearing a bond ring each. The finest rubies comes from Burma, and again adjacent areas have the next rarest and expensive. There are many other fine sources of rubies to be found in the world. Among them, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Kenya, Tanzania,and Kashmir. The Kashmir ruby is very hard, marking 9 on the Mohs' scale.
As ruby is very hard and durable it can be a long term investment and you can be assured a carved or clear piece of ruby will be intact and worthy of respect, even more, decades from now. Rubies are so valuable that many tricks can be tried, and you must be wary. Chemicals can be added to make the gem something that close inspection will reveal to be false.Sapphire is known as the celestial gem, the symbol of divine heaven and good health is the mineral corundum, We know sapphire mostly in its blue aspect, it also comes in almost all color ranges.
Sapphire is also very hard measuring 9 on the Mohs' scale. Blue Sapphires

can be amongst the most valuable from this area.