Emerald Appraised Jewelry Part One

art one of a two part series on Emerald Appraised Jewelry.

Emeralds are a variety of Beryl the mineral, which in this case is colored green due to the trace elements of chromium and occasionally iron.

A little known fact is that, by weight emeralds are the most valuable stone in the world and the best quality emeralds are more valuable than diamonds (who's value actually is more contrived than as a result of natural market forces).

Emeralds can reduce in value depending on the number of inclusions (flaws, fissures or bubbles within the stone) and the hardness naturally decreases also.

Emeralds are usually oiled with microscopically to fill any cracks and fissures within the stone. And this helps to retain the stones hardness level of around 7.5 on the Moh hardness scale.

Emeralds come in various shades of green to bluish green but brilliant green is by far the most popular. Also the clarity of a emerald will affect the value. An emerald with no inclusions and perfect clarity is extremely rare and would be worth its weight in much more than diamonds.

Emeralds are rare however and so synthetic stones are made. Without going into two technical and boring details one of the first methods was to grow emeralds on colorless beryl seeds which become coated on both sides. The growth is slow, about 1 millimeter per month and it takes seven months to produce a 7mm thick emerald.

Later more sophisticated methods involving high pressure and temperatures have been used although the exact processes tend to be kept secret. Synthetics emeralds are often referred to as 'created'.

The Emerald is considered the traditional birthstone for April and May , as well as the traditional gemstone for the astrological sign of Taurus and in some cultures, the emerald is the traditional gift for the 55th wedding anniversary. It is also used as a 20th and 35th wedding anniversary stone.

In part two of emerald appraised jewelry, available at http://allaboutemeralds.org, we look at how to buy emeralds and what to look for.

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Michael Moore