List of precious and semi-precious stones> Names, types and description

Each gem­stone has its own name and cer­tain char­ac­ter­is­tics. A mas­ter jew­el­er is able to empha­size the prop­er­ties of any nugget or pre­cise cut, which cre­ates a cer­tain play of light, which is com­pli­cat­ed by the set­ting.
In order to achieve a won­der­ful effect in the man­u­fac­ture of jew­el­ry, you need: expe­ri­ence, a deep knowl­edge of the prop­er­ties of var­i­ous types of pre­cious stones, and a sense of the aes­thet­ics of the com­po­si­tion. We will talk in detail about the fea­tures of all types of pre­cious stones in this arti­cle.

What stones are precious?

On our plan­et there are more than 4000 nat­ur­al stones with dif­fer­ent char­ac­ter­is­tics, com­po­si­tion of chem­i­cal ele­ments and struc­ture. Only some of them after pro­cess­ing and pol­ish­ing find a bright shine. Thanks to these unique prop­er­ties, they began to be called “pre­cious”, an offi­cial list of types of nat­ur­al stones with pho­tos was com­piled. But due to the slow­ness of the process­es tak­ing place in the earth­’s crust, these resources are con­sid­ered non-renew­able — their quan­ti­ty in nature is strict­ly lim­it­ed.

List of gem characteristics

1. Glit­terwhich is enhanced by pol­ish­ing and cut­ting.
2. How often it occurs in nature.
3. Puri­ty of col­or.
4. Degree of sta­bil­i­ty to mechan­i­cal dam­age and high tem­per­a­tures.
5. Indi­vid­ual prop­er­ties (col­or, shape).

How is the value of precious stones determined by a photo?

Fac­tors that deter­mine the val­ue of any stone:

• rar­i­ty,
• clean­li­ness,
• col­or and its shade,
• struc­ture,
• sur­face shape (shale or shell),
• size,
• weight.

The unit of mea­sure­ment of the weight of drag. stone — carat (1 carat = 200 mg).
The cost of sell­ing stones for jew­el­ry with dif­fer­ent names is deter­mined not only by the nat­ur­al qual­i­ties of the min­er­al, but also by the crafts­man­ship of the cut. True crafts­men are able to achieve greater bril­liance from a less pre­cious stone, which a less expe­ri­enced spe­cial­ist can­not do when work­ing with a high-end dia­mond.

The main differences between precious minerals and semi-precious stones

The main cri­te­ria are gloss and fre­quen­cy of extrac­tion in nature. As the name sug­gests, gems are a clas­si­fi­ca­tion of rare min­er­als from a rel­a­tive­ly small fam­i­ly. This does not mean that they are all cre­at­ed by nature.
The list of semi-pre­cious stones is a list of arti­fi­cial min­er­als that are much more com­mon in nature than pre­cious stones, while los­ing their unique exclu­siv­i­ty.
The signs by which dif­fer­ent types of jew­el­ry stones are dis­tin­guished are:

• hard­ness. Here the lim­it is clear­ly estab­lished: pre­cious stones (see pho­to) have a hard­ness high­er than 7 on the Mohs scale and are there­fore hard­er than quartz. Since there are few such min­er­als in nature, this makes them very valu­able;
• dura­bil­i­ty. Some expen­sive pre­cious stones with well-known names are resis­tant to atmos­pher­ic influ­ences, oth­ers eas­i­ly decom­pose under the influ­ence of var­i­ous chem­i­cal fac­tors.

Names of precious stones by color and meaning

Nature gave us stones of all the col­ors of the rain­bow and many shades that can make you dizzy. The shim­mer­ing light reflect­ed in the stone struc­ture reveals col­ors we nev­er dreamed of. It makes us real­ize that there are unusu­al col­or tones beyond our imag­i­na­tion.
It is enough to look at the glow of dia­monds to under­stand that trans­par­ent light is the great­est artist of all time. White stones such as dia­mond, white sap­phire, pearls rep­re­sent puri­ty, fideli­ty and inno­cence. They are a sym­bol of hap­pi­ness, har­mo­ny of soul and body.
Look­ing at a sap­phire, you will find that the blue col­or comes in count­less shades — start­ing from dark blue and end­ing with a rich shade of sea waves.
Blue nat­ur­al pre­cious stones, called topaz, aqua­ma­rine, blue dia­mond, turquoise, lapis lazuli, are asso­ci­at­ed with the end­less sky, the depth of the seas and oceans. They sym­bol­ize peace, truth and youth.
The names of beau­ti­ful red gems (ruby, gar­net, rhodo­lite, coral, tour­ma­line) sym­bol­ize love, courage and self-con­fi­dence, as well as a live­ly tem­pera­ment.
The mean­ing of all green gem­stones (emer­ald, peri­dot, green sap­phire) is a descrip­tion of eter­nal hope, bliss, good­ness, vital­i­ty and fer­til­i­ty.
Yel­low types of gems — yel­low sap­phire, yel­low topaz — give wis­dom, self-con­fi­dence, the abil­i­ty to make the right deci­sions, pro­mote hap­pi­ness
and good luck.

What are precious stones?

The main types of nat­ur­al min­er­als:

• dia­mond — the king of pre­cious stones, whose leg­endary fame, daz­zling beau­ty and sym­bol­ism have been cov­et­ed for cen­turies. Its name comes from the Greek word adamus, which trans­lates as “unbreak­able” and alludes to its strength and hard­ness. A round-cut dia­mond is called a dia­mond and is most often dec­o­rat­ed with wed­ding rings as a sym­bol of true, pure and eter­nal love. High-qual­i­ty dia­monds impress with their cut — they fas­ci­nate with the play of light, trans­paren­cy and unusu­al shine. The val­ue of a dia­mond is deter­mined by the 4C para­me­ters — cut, weight (carat), col­or, i.e. col­or and trans­paren­cy, i.e. puri­ty. the length of dia­monds is con­firmed by met­rics and cer­tifi­cates of the most respect­ed gemo­log­i­cal lab­o­ra­to­ries and insti­tutes in the world: IGI (Inter­na­tion­al Gemo­log­i­cal Insti­tute) and GIA (Gemo­log­i­cal Insti­tute of Amer­i­ca).
  
• ruby, called “the col­ored extract of drops of blood of moth­er earth”, is con­sid­ered one of the most unique gem­stones. It has long sym­bol­ized the great­est wealth and love. Its name comes from the Latin word ruber, which means red. But it comes in dif­fer­ent shades — from pale pink to dark pur­ple, rem­i­nis­cent of wine, shim­mer­ing in the sun. Ruby owes its won­der­ful col­or to impu­ri­ties of chromi­um oxide. It is this com­pound that gives the pig­ment, which is found in small quan­ti­ties in the earth­’s crust, mak­ing the ruby ​​one of the rarest gems on Earth;
  
• emer­ald. This is a pre­cious stone, the green shade of which is dif­fi­cult to describe in words — a col­or full of ele­ments and depth. It has the dynamism and mys­tery, thanks to which these orig­i­nal stones have cap­ti­vat­ed with their beau­ty for cen­turies. “Smarag­dos” is a Greek term that lit­er­al­ly trans­lates to “sim­ple green stone”;
  
• sap­phire per­fect­ly com­bines dig­ni­fied cool­ness and pierc­ing depth. This is one of the types of corun­dum, which is the hard­est nat­ur­al min­er­al after dia­mond. Blue sap­phire con­tains impu­ri­ties of iron or tita­ni­um. It reflects all the shades of the sky seen at sun­set: from the beau­ti­ful warm col­ors seen in the west to the dark blue seen in the east.
  The ancient civ­i­liza­tions of Egypt and Rome con­sid­ered sap­phires sacred stones of truth and jus­tice. To this day, for Bud­dhists, sap­phire means peace, friend­ship and sta­bil­i­ty, it is con­sid­ered a tal­is­man of mar­i­tal hap­pi­ness;
  
• tan­zan­ite — a stone of the cor­rect cut and set­ting. It cap­ti­vates with its unique col­or, trans­paren­cy and beau­ti­ful shine. Although not as hard as dia­mond, it is con­sid­ered scratch resis­tant. Its strength and charm is evi­denced by the fact that in just a few decades it has become the embod­i­ment of lux­u­ry and sophis­ti­ca­tion. He won the love of women of all ages. Its ver­sa­til­i­ty is also appre­ci­at­ed — it is per­fect­ly com­bined with many out­fits — black, ashen, as well as with cor­re­spond­ing deep blue shades. It has become a tra­di­tion to frame tan­zan­ite with tiny dia­monds, which add shine and allow you to ful­ly express your fab­u­lous charm.
  
  What are gem­stones from nat­ur­al ores?

• Pearls — marine and fresh­wa­ter. Most pearls are shaped like small spheres. There are also spec­i­mens of dif­fer­ent col­ors with a drop‑, egg-shaped or slight­ly flat­tened shape. Nat­ur­al fresh­wa­ter pearls are grown in reser­voirs that meet the strictest require­ments and are adapt­ed to the exis­tence of var­i­ous types of mus­sels. Most often, these pearls are extract­ed from the rivers of Chi­na, Mon­go­lia, Rus­sia and Cana­da, as well as from lakes locat­ed in North and South Amer­i­ca.
  
• Weapon — pre­cious beads of var­i­ous sizes and shapes, which are often used by design­ers to make exclu­sive jew­el­ry. It is a nat­ur­al organ­ic mate­r­i­al obtained from the skele­tons of lime­stone corals, which make up the famous coral reefs and shoals with dense, uneven­ly branched trunks. Corals live in warm and hot seas. The largest colonies are on the shores of the Mediter­ranean Sea. Alger­ian corals are the most valu­able. In their nat­ur­al state, their pieces are mat­te, and after pol­ish­ing, they acquire an impres­sive glass lus­ter. After extrac­tion, they are sort­ed by thick­ness and size of twigs, col­or. Pol­ished pieces of coral most often have a spher­i­cal or oval shape, when using a smooth cabo­chon facet. Fash­ion­able neck­laces and spec­tac­u­lar bracelets are made from coral beads. Bright red coral jew­el­ry is most val­ued. Pink and black beads are also used in jew­el­ry, unique white beads from Japan and blue beads mined in Cameroon;
  
• Aven­turine. It has a shim­mer­ing sur­face effect. A very sim­i­lar stone was arti­fi­cial­ly made in a glass fac­to­ry locat­ed in Mura­no, Venice. The imi­ta­tion was named aven­turine because by chance (per aven­tu­ra) par­ti­cles of cop­per got into the glass mass dur­ing melt­ing and gave an extreme­ly shim­mer­ing prod­uct. When a sim­i­lar min­er­al was dis­cov­ered, it was named the same. To this day, most of the stones called aven­turine are arti­fi­cial­ly pro­duced, but they are not infe­ri­or in beau­ty to the min­er­al that occurs nat­u­ral­ly in the envi­ron­ment. Its unusu­al dec­o­ra­tive­ness is appre­ci­at­ed by the cre­ators of jew­el­ry and oth­er jew­el­ry, it is used in sculp­ture and inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion.
  
• Gar­net. A stone whose beau­ty was appre­ci­at­ed in Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and oth­er mod­ern cul­tures. At the time of the Roman philoso­pher Pliny the Elder, red pome­gran­ates were called car­bun­cles, which trans­lates as “heat.” Due to its dark red col­or, it is asso­ci­at­ed with love, pas­sion and vital ener­gy. When worn, it increas­es a per­son­’s vital­i­ty, pro­tects him from ene­mies. It has a pos­i­tive effect on the work of the heart and cir­cu­la­to­ry sys­tem.
  
• Turquoise is one of the old­est pre­cious stones with mag­i­cal prop­er­ties. It has an intense col­or that changes col­or from blue to green. Con­tains cop­per and iron. The more of the sec­ond ele­ment in it, the green­er the shade of turquoise. The most val­ued is turquoise of a char­ac­ter­is­tic blue col­or, which received the spe­cif­ic name “turquoise”. This group also includes amber, jasper, tour­ma­line, obsid­i­an, and alexan­drite.

Semi-precious gemstones: photos and basic names

Var­i­ous semi-pre­cious stones are obtained by prop­er­ly grind­ing min­er­als and then per­form­ing such treat­ments as:

• oil­ing,
• col­or,
• foil­ing,
• heat­ing,
• drilling,
• fill­ing.

The most common names of semi-precious jewelry stones:

• Agate is a chal­cedony min­er­al, a semi-pre­cious stone con­sist­ing of a mix­ture of iron and man­ganese. It is char­ac­ter­ized by a large num­ber of col­ors — from white, red, blue, gray, brown to black. It is trans­par­ent and mat­te. There are many types of agates: land­scape, den­drit­ic, rib­bon, serf, fire, lace, iri­des­cent, star, ruins, cyclops. They are found all over the world;
  
• ama­zonite is sim­i­lar to jade or turquoise and is often con­fused with them. It owes its name to the Ama­zon Val­ley in Brazil. Leg­end has it that the Ama­zon Indi­ans gave peo­ple blue-green stones. They owe their green col­or to the pres­ence of lead com­pounds. Ama­zonite is most­ly opaque, although trans­par­ent min­er­als exist;
  
• Amethyst is a type of quartz. Its col­or is not con­stant, it can lose its sat­u­ra­tion due to expo­sure to the sun;
  
• bronzite — sil­i­cate. Its brown col­or is due to its 50% iron con­tent. It has inclu­sions of hematite, goethite and mag­ne­sium. It occurs with iron, biotin, quartz, feldspar, olivine and almeni­dine. Jew­el­ry from this min­er­al is few and lit­tle known;
  
• chryso­col­la occurs in cop­per-bear­ing soils and pre­cip­i­tates from sil­i­cate-rich waters. It is often mixed with cop­per com­pounds and relat­ed min­er­als — quartz, lapis lazuli, turquoise, cit­rine, cuprite, tenorite, hematite and mala­chite. The mix­ture of brown and black col­ors is caused by cop­per, iron and man­ganese. Chryso­col­la har­mo­nizes ener­gy and brings bal­ance;
  
• chryso­prase is a beau­ti­ful apple-green or herba­ceous vari­ety from the list of semi-trans­par­ent semi-pre­cious stones of the chal­cedony group. Its col­or depends on sil­i­con or nick­el com­pounds. When worn con­stant­ly, chryso­prase adds vital­i­ty;
  
• Cit­rine is the rarest vari­ety of yel­low quartz. It is found in many igneous and meta­mor­phic rocks, in gran­ites and gneiss­es, where it is present in abun­dance. Cleans­es with water and takes effect in the sun. It is con­sid­ered a mag­i­cal stone and is used in eso­teri­cism;
  
• flu­o­rite is a com­pound of flu­o­rine, chlo­rine, bromine and iodine. The vari­ety of col­ors (col­or­less, yel­low, green, vio­let, pur­ple, pink, black, red) makes it an ide­al mate­r­i­al for mak­ing jew­el­ry, bracelets, rings, and neck­laces. Flu­o­rite can change its col­or under the influ­ence of sun­light;
  
• hematite is derived from the Greek word heme, mean­ing blood. In jew­el­ry, it is used not only as an ele­ment of jew­el­ry, beads or a pen­dant, but in pow­dered form it serves as a pol­ish­ing pow­der and also as a source of red dye. The nat­ur­al col­ors of hematite are black-brown, gray-black or black, but nowa­days it improves or changes its col­or;
  
• howlite con­sists of hydrat­ed cal­ci­um borate. Opaque, some­times white cream col­or with small gray or black streaks. Howlite can be cut into cabo­chons, spheres, ovals, shapes of ani­mals, plants and even skulls. It can also be drilled to cre­ate beau­ti­ful beads;
  
• labradorite is called the “tem­ple of the stars”, it brings clar­i­ty of thought, reveal­ing the wis­dom of the uni­verse. It is con­sid­ered a stone that brings relief from states of anx­i­ety, hope­less­ness and depres­sion, replac­ing them with enthu­si­asm, self-con­fi­dence and inspi­ra­tion;
  
• mala­chite is found on the sur­face of the Earth. This is usu­al­ly seen on snow peaks on moun­tain tops and in cer­tain places where the rain has cooled very much and formed pud­dles of water. This min­er­al is very close to lapis lazuli, a green or pur­ple col­ored min­er­al seen in Kenya. When this min­er­al is formed by heat, the shades of green are many shades of green;
  
• onyx — a black or dark blue min­er­al that brings spir­i­tu­al inspi­ra­tion and clar­i­ty of mind, helps calm emo­tions and facil­i­tates their con­trol;
  
• opal (trans­lat­ed from San­skrit means “change”) is the most com­mon nat­ur­al pho­ton­ic crys­tal relat­ed to sil­i­cates. There are ordi­nary and noble opals of dif­fer­ent shades, demon­strat­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic opti­cal phe­nom­e­na: iri­des­cence, opales­cence, the effect of a cat’s eye.
  

Thanks to the use of spe­cial­ized equip­ment and mod­ern tech­nolo­gies, the prices of semi-pre­cious jew­el­ry and bijouterie stones are afford­able for every­one.