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Diamonds have been in use for jewelry for thousands of years. It is judged that they were first used and actively mined 3,000 years ago in India, but there is also evidence that it was used there about 6,000 years ago. In those days it was almost impossible to cut or polish the diamonds.

The recognition of diamonds as jewelry really rose in the Eighteenth Century, at which time more ‘contemporary’ techniques allowed the acts of cutting and polishing to be done more easily. Successful advertising ploys helped make diamonds more desirable to the general population.

Cartels of diamond miners and sellers such as De Beers restricted the supply of diamonds which has successfully held the price unnaturally high for decades. An instance of extremely successful promotion is Argyle or brown diamonds in Australia

Brown diamonds were thought to be useless for jewelry because of their dirty colour. However, one mine in Australia produces 7,000 kg of brown diamonds a year, so began a campaign to make them desirable. These days, they can be worn as jewelry in Australia and sell well.

Because of the high price of diamonds and the restricted supply, jewelers have sought a man-manufactured, cheaper alternative. Cubic Zirconia is one of the best synthetic diamond-like materials that they have come up with so far.

Some people would rather purchase cubic zirconia than real diamonds because they do not like to be manipulated and ultimately cheated by the diamond companies. Surveys suggest that numerous diamonds have been ‘altered’ to increase their apparent value and that much too many diamonds are too highly priced.

Some others are shying away from diamonds for factors of conscience. ‘Blood Diamonds’ and forced child labour have hit the headlines. The conditions in these forced labour camps is horrendous and was truthfully depicted in the film ‘Blood Diamond’ with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Cubic zirconia is a very decent copy of diamonds and is difficult to distinguish from the real thing without specialist tools and a thorough knowledge of gemstones. Many well-known rich people are refusing to wear diamonds, not because they cannot afford them, but because of their above associations.

There are several other options to cubic zirconia including moissanite and nexus, but cubic zirconia is the firm favourite. Russian cubic zirconia is among the principal forms of the ‘gemstone’.

It is worth stating here that cubic zirconia does not exist in nature, although its raw form zircon (zirconium silicate) and zirconium dioxide does. Russian cubic zirconia is made to the specifications set down by the Gemological Institute of America.

If you are content to wear cubic zirconia, you will be treading the green path in jewelry and saving lots of money as well. Cubic zirconia is approximately 25% of the cost of diamonds, so you can afford to spend more on the setting rather than on the stone. Cubic zirconia looks fantastic in a solid platinum or pure gold mounting.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a number of topics, but is now involved with Amber in Poland. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Jewellry but Watches.

Horse lovers and riding aficionados often like to demonstrate their affection for the animals and their hobby. There are a number of methods of doing this. Children might decorate their bedrooms with wallpaper with horses on it or wear badges.

I saw a car a while ago with the registration plate “HOR5E” and I have seen men wearing rings with a design of a horse running inlaid into the stone in gold. Women frequently wear brooches of a similar design or only the head of a horse.

Equestrian jewellery is stylish and also timeless enough to be worn on any occasion. A beautiful horse’s head drawn in tiny diamonds makes a stunning brooch, but so does one fashioned from gold or silver. In fact, numerous jewellers are realizing the popularity of equestrian jewellery.

Although the horse’s head brooch is almost certainly the most traditional piece of equestrian jewellery, pendants are also well-liked these days. The jeweller can craft a larger piece when it is suspended about the neck than if it is pinned to the hair or clothing.

You may not have seen the type of jewellery that I am describing, but I bet that you have seen the Lucky Horse Shoe displayed somewhere. The Lucky Horse Shoe is only another aspect of equestrian jewellery. Many women like to wear them around their necks or on a Charm Bracelet.

The most well-known symbol of a horse is almost certainly the Ferrari logo. The Ferrari logo of a rearing horse not just adorns their cars, but may also be seen on official Ferrari memorabilia such as Ferrari jewellery, Ferrari watches and Ferrari shirts and jumpers.

However, equestrian jewellery does not just come in the shape of the horses themselves. The accoutrements to riding are also often represented in jewellery. Men frequently use cuff links in the form of tiny stirrups and women frequently wear silver or gold riding boots on their Lucky Charm bracelets.

Besides the above-mentioned equestrian lucky charms, I have also observed horse buckets, saddles and hunting horns on ladies’ charm bracelets or as single charms suspended from the ears or about the neck. They can also be worn as larger articles as brooches.

Much of this type of jewellery is intended for the more well-to-do horsey set and for girls as they go through their horse-loving phase. Therefore, the articles are made in two distinct types: costly and the not so costly – otherwise very few girls would get the opportunity to show their affection for their large four-legged friends.

The last group of people that can often be seen wearing equestrian jewellery is the gambler who likes to follow horse racing. This is normally a man, but definitely not always.

These men will often wear pins of some form depicting an aspect of their love of the sport and the animals. They may also think of them as lucky charms too.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a variety of topics, and is now concerned with Good Diamond Quality. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Jewellry and Watches.

Blue and green are two of the most popular colours among people and with nature – the sea, water, the sky and plants are all green or blue or turquoise, a greeny-blue. Turquoise is the colour of the open sea. It is not a difficult colour to like and it matches with most colour schemes.

Turquoise is not a especially rare gemstone, but it is rare in its finest state. It is mined in numerous countries including the USA, Iran, India and China. The name turquoise comes from an old French word for Turkey or Turkish, because it was first brought into Europe from Iranian or Persian mines via Turkey.

Turquoise is easily smashed and is only slightly stronger than glass, having a hardness of 6. Turquoise is one of the oldest mined gemstones and still, most of the world’s mines are small and hand-operated.

Some of the Persian mines are 2,000 years old and still being worked. However, the oldest mines are on the Sinai Peninsular and they are known to be at least 3,000 years old as they were used in the times of the pharaohs.

The colour varies through greens and blues because of the existence or minerals. If there is more copper present the stone will be bluer and if there is aluminium or iron, it will be greener.

Iranian turquoise is among the best quality in the world and is used predominantly in the jewelery industry. Turquoise from some other locations, like the south-western states of America, is of inferior grade and is too chalky and powdery for this use.

Regrettably, chemists have discovered ways to enhance this gemstone, so that unless you are an expert or buying from a reliable source, you could easily end up purchasing poor grade turquoise that has been treated. This is the case with other gemstones too.

Some of the tricks that they use are:

Chemicals can be used to intensify the natural colour of the gem

Resin can be soaked into the pores of porous, friable, low-grade turquoise to ‘stabilize’ it – ie prevent it flaking and crumbling.

Totally untreated, natural turquoise of pleasant appearance is very rare and so very expensive. It would be very hard to impossible for a layman to identify whether a stone has been treated or not, but you are unlikely ever to come across any.

Whatever, grade of turquoise you have, you will have to take care of it because it is quite soft, easily scratched and quite easily crushed to powder.

Therefore, do not leave it to rattle around in your bag and store it wrapped on its own in a cool, dark place. Extremes of temperature might harm it as well. Turquoise is naturally porous, even if it has been drenched in resin, so do not allow oils or perfumes to soak into it.

If you have to wash a turquoise, you will need nothing but a soft fabric and warm, but not hot, water. Dry the stone right away after washing with a second soft duster. Be careful not to score the surface with the dirt that you are cleaning off.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a variety of topics, but is now concerned with Baby Birthstones. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Jewellry but Watches.

People like precious gemstones for different reasons. Some store wealth in gems and precious metals, some wear then to display their wealth and their self-perceived status, some believe that wearing their birthstone will bring them health, wealth and happiness and others wear them because they look nice.

Valuable gemstones have always been sought after because of their value, but in older days, they were also prized for other reasons, such as being able to bestow good health. This belief persists among some peoples, but not a lot in the Developed World any more.

In the Developed World, most people wear precious stones for their beauty and to exhibit status. In the East, people also wear precious stones to display status, but collect them because they do not traditionally have faith in banks.

And who could blame them in the light of the Developed World’s recent experience with their financial banking crisis and the meteoric rise in the cost of gold? There is probably a lesson for us all here.

Anyway, apart from precious metals, there are precious stones and the most expensive of them are: emeralds, diamonds, rubies and sapphires. The order of the stones in value relies on the quality.

Diamonds of ordinary quality are worth more than emeralds of regular quality, but high quality emeralds are worth more than high quality diamonds, because it is hard to find emeralds without lots of faults, which are also known as ‘inclusions’.

Diamonds come in all kinds of colours from clear to ‘black’. Clear diamonds are what most people would want, but there are some very expensive big coloured diamonds in yellow and blue.

The problem with gemstones is that their supply is closely regulated by cartels and governments, which keeps their cost artificially high. Diamonds are the worst of the bunch in this regard.

De Beers controls a substantial proportion of the diamond market and was able to regulate prices for decades. The Argyle mine of Australia produces 7,000 kg of brown diamonds, which were by tradition considered worthless for the purposes of jewelry.

However, due to a clever marketing campaign, brown diamonds are now considered valuable in Australia, although clear diamonds are still preferred in the rest of the world.

Emeralds are a gorgeous green gemstone, but it is very hard to purchase a good one. Many emeralds have been doctored to look more valuable than they truly are, but this is true of diamonds as well.

If you like red gems, then a ruby is for you. Ruby is a description of the colour red and rubies can vary from blood red crimson to pink, but in general, the deeper the red the better. However, not all red stones that are sold as rubies are rubies, but you could have guessed that

Sapphire is normally a beautiful deep blue, but may also be pale blue to pink. Sapphires come mostly from the East, like Thailand, Russia but even North Carolina in the USA.

If you are going to purchase any of these top gemstones, purchase the best that you are able to afford, because you can pass them on to your children as an inheritance.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a number of topics, and is now concerned with Good Diamond Quality. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Jewellry and Watches.

The majority of women like jewellery, Many men do too, but they tend to prefer gadgets and watches. In many countries women store their wealth in jewellery as exemplified by the Fifties hit “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend”. Asian women in particular accumulate gold.

However, precious stones and precious metals are generally 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 like the clarity and brilliance of diamonds, whilst others prefer aquamarine, turquoise of green.

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

Gemstones are formed underground at great pressures and they get their colours from the minerals involved in their composition. Gemstones are generally fairly hard, because they were fashioned 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 illnesses.

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

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

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.

Become very suspicious of stones that are called ‘something’ emeralds like Lithia emeralds or oriental emeralds. These are usually cheaper gemstones which are referred to as emeralds in order to boost 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 bad specimens that are being held together by resin. It is very hard for a novice to know the difference between the decent and the bad, which makes it vital to buy from a reputable jeweller or dealer.

Emeralds have been well-liked since the days 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 places.

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

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

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a number of subjects, and is now concerned with Amber in Poland. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Jewellry and Watches.