Emeralds - The Green Gems

By Owen Jones


Most women like jewellery, Numerous men do as well, but they tend to prefer gadgets and watches. In many countries women store their wealth in jewellery as exemplified by the Fifties song "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend". Asian women in particular collect gold.

However, precious stones and precious metals are by and large perceived to be very valuable. Leaving the value of the piece aside, most people have a favourite colour.

Some prefer yellow gold, others prefer white. Some prefer the clarity and brilliance of diamonds, while others prefer aquamarine, turquoise of green.

In fact, high-quality green gems are among the most precious of all gemstones including diamonds. Emeralds are the most costly green gemstones weight for weight.

Gemstones are created underground at immense pressures and they derive their colours from the minerals involved in their composition. Gemstones are generally quite hard, because they were formed under great pressure.

In olden times, lots of people believed that gemstones had magical properties. The magical property ascribed to emerald was the restoration of sight and the curing of eye diseases.

In fact, emeralds are a kind of beryl and derive their green colour from the element chromium or sometimes vanadium. Emeralds have a hardness of seven to eight; diamonds are the hardest at 10 on the Mohs Scale.

However, emerald has a great many inclusions (or faults), so it will shatter fairly easily. These inclusions give emeralds their typical fuzzy look.Nevertheless, the best emeralds are those that have a clear, transparent, even colour of green throughout.

Weight for weight, an emerald of the best quality is more valuable than a diamond of comparable quality, which amazes most people. However, decent diamonds are easier to find than decent emeralds and hence the disparity in price.

Be very suspicious of stones that are known as 'something' emeralds like Lithia emeralds or oriental emeralds. These are normally cheaper gemstones which are referred to as emeralds in order to enhance their value. These stones are not emeralds and not worth much in comparison.

Because of the cost of real emeralds, numerous 'cheap emeralds' are either not emeralds at all or are very poor specimens that are being held together by resin. It is very difficult for a novice to know the difference between the decent and the bad, which makes it vital to purchase from a reputable jeweller or dealer.

Emeralds have been popular since the times of the pharaohs and there are emerald mines in Egypt. There are also emerald mines in Siberia, Brazil, Zambia, Pakistan, South Africa, India and Australia amongst other countries.

In spite of the fact that there appears to be numerous sources of emeralds, good quality gemstones are still hard to get hold of at a good price. However, there are no equivalents to emerald, so if you like the best, you can expect to pay handsomely for it.

As with all expensive gemstones, you ought to get a signed certificate of weight and quality when you purchase an emerald.




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