Tanzanite is relatively new to the colored stone galaxy. Almost overnight, tanzanite was popular with leading jewelry designers and other gem professionals, as well as with customers who had an eye for beautiful and unusual gems.

Learn about sunstone's durability and how to care for your sunstone jewelry.

Spinel is a good candidate for the title of “History’s Most Underappreciated Gem.” Some ancient mines that supplied gems for royal courts from Rome to China produced spinel, but it was usually confused with better-known stones like ruby and sapphire.

The Black Prince’s Ruby. The Timur Ruby. For centuries, spinel, the great imposter, masqueraded as ruby in Europe’s crown jewels

The spinel used in jewelry is a small part of a group of minerals that share the same crystal structure. Not all of them form transparent crystals suitable for jewelry use, however. Spinel offers a range of hues, from orange to intense “stoplight” red, vibrant pink, and all shades of purple, blue, and violet through bluish green.

This silicate of aluminum, iron, and magnesium has two distinctive features—a beautiful, violetish blue through slightly violetish blue hue derived from iron and a striking, eye-visible pleochroism.

Iolite has a long history of use as an adornment and possibly as a navigation tool.

Modern gemologists use the word “jade” as a generic term for both nephrite and jadeite. These minerals have been linked throughout history.

了解锆石如此受欢迎的原因。

Zircon occurs in an array of colors. Its wide and varied palette of yellow, green, red, reddish brown, and blue hues makes it a favorite among collectors as well as informed consumers.

Learn about Zircon's durability and how to care for your Zircon jewelry.

Learn about the factors that make rose quartz so desirable.

Rose quartz jewelry was known to be crafted by the Assyrians around 800-600 BC. The Assyrians, along with the Romans, might have been the first to use this stone.

Rose quartz is one of the many quartz varieties used as a gem material. It gets its name from its delicate pink color, which ranges from very light (almost white) to medium-dark.

Learn about the factors that make lapis lazuli so desirable.

A review of Diamonds: An Early History of the King of Gems by Jack Ogden.

Review of Figures & Faces: The Art of Jewelry by Patrick Mauriès and Évelyne Possémé

Review of Geology: A Very Short Introduction by Jan Zalasiewicz.

Review of Masterpieces in Miniature: Engraved Gems from Prehistory to the Present by John Boardman and Claudia Wagner.

Review of Symphony of Jewels: Anna Hu Opus 2 by Janet Zapata with Sarah Davis.