Jewelry Diamonds Information

While quartz is the most plentiful mineral on earth, it also provides endless fascination and beauty for experts and casual observers alike. It is found in nearly every geological environment and is at least a component of almost every rock type. It is also the most varied in terms of varieties, colors and forms.

This variety comes about because of the abundance and widespread distribution of quartz. A collector could easily have hundreds of quartz specimens and not have two that are the same due to the many broad categories.

Quartz is usually clear, but in granite it is also cloudy white or grayish in color. It can also be dark (as in smoky quartz). Many gemstones are actually less common colored varieties of quartz. Examples include purple amethyst,yellow citrine, and pink rose quartz. Because quartz is so resistant to weathering due to its chemical composition and atomic bonds, it accumulates as the other minerals in a rock erode. Light colored beach, Aeolian and alluvial sand is composed of mainly quartz grains.

The use of Crystals for crystal healing or gem healing, has been linked to mental, physical, spiritual health, charkas' energy, whose Healing Power followers of the New Age, Psychic Healing and Atlantis and Crystal Healers have long revered for relieving pain, stress, depression, anxiety in the mind, body and spirit. Spiritual Healers believe this approach to alternative medicine is essential for ensuring health.

For Spiritual Healers, no stone is as essential to their craft as quartz. Embodying all the qualities they seek, it is the quintessential healing crystal. Part of this faith they place in Quartz comes from its scientific properties that make it useful in electronic devices. From this one truth, Crystal Healers make huge leaps in logic.

They believe that its crystal formation can align the harmonies within the human body, that they can "program" the crystal easily, that acupuncture needles coated with quartz are more effective, and that it has the ability to receive and send energy.

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In ancient Egypt, glazed quartz served as a substitute when no high quality examples of Turquoise could be found. The Greeks had originally named quartz, krystallos, the word for ice, but this soon came to mean any crystal. In China's Ming Dynasty, quartz often showed up as stone in jewelry work. In Pre-Columbian America, explorations of Mixtec graves have uncovered quartz use for ear jewelry.

In European history, Queen Elizabeth I’s court spiritualist’s crystal ball was Smoky Quartz, which is also the national gem of Scotland, whose national scepter included a large Smoky Quartz on its top. In modern times, it was the first crystal used in radio transmission and reception and was essential in the development of computers.

Clear quartz is of the traditional healing stones believed to draw out pain and amplify healing energy. Crystal Healers use clear quartz in rituals meant to treat convulsions, diarrhea, dizziness, exposure to radiation, general pain, hemorrhages, headaches, hypochondria and kidney diseases.

Rose quartz is used for treating cardiovascular health, fertility, headaches, kidney disease, migraines and sexual dysfunction, as well as those disorders occurring in the throat, ears, nose and sinuses.

Rose quartz is the essential stone for increasing love and for times of extreme emotional turmoil, such as divorce, bereavement or career set backs because it helps to remind the wearer of the importance of self-love. It stimulates the body's love centers and can result in peace and fidelity in committed relationships.

As one of the most important crystals for attracting love it does emotional maintenance clearing out emotional baggage, converting negative emotions, and calms hot tempers, all of which prepare us for love. The stone is also recommended for improving mental discipline and making one more responsible, and for meditation and mental tranquility.

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Who doesn't love rose quartz in all its varying hues of pink? Rose quartz takes its name from the flower because of its translucent and delicate pink color caused by traces of iron, manganese or titanium. Rose quartz is usually very large - meaning that it doesn't form crystals.

Rose quartz is found in Madagascar, India, Germany and several areas in the USA. Much rose quartz was extracted from a famous site near Custer, South Dakota, but now, most of the world's supply comes from Brazil. Rose quartz is one of the most valued varieties of quartz. The pink to rose red color is unique.

The color of rose quartz is still not completely understood. It has been said to be due to a number of different minor impurities present in the rose quartz including titanium, manganese and even colloidal gold.

However, recent studies using micro-analytical methods have discovered that the color of massive rose quartz is actually due to microscopic mineral fibers in the rose quartz. X-ray diffraction tests on these microscopic fibers yielded patterns similar to the mineral dumortierite, suggesting the possibility of a totally new and as yet unknown fibrous mineral causing the color in massive rose quartz.

The rare transparent crystals of rose quartz owe their coloration to aluminum and phosphorous impurities. Their pink color is photosensitive and can fade in sunlight.

Rose quartz is often called the 'love stone'. It is associated with forgiveness and compassion and can create a wonderful calming influence. It is soft and delicate inspiring feelings of love and friendship. Rose quartz is aid to help remove repressed anger and hatred and is said to remove negative influences such as jealousy and avarice.

It is said to aid the spleen, kidneys and circulation system. Rose quartz also eases sexual and emotional imbalance and can also improve fertility. It makes a lovely gift as it is a symbol of love.
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When did diamonds first become recognized as precious stones and used for jewelry? The earliest reference to them has been found in a Sanskrit document dated around 300BCE. They were associated with the gods and were used to decorate religious icons and statues. In India, only kings, the highest caste, were allowed to own them.

Although diamonds were traded east and west of India, they were still prized in their natural crystal state, or polished to increase the shine and luster of them. The first guild of diamond cutters was established in 1375, and it was then that the practice of cutting the stones and faceting them was developed.

From the earliest times, diamonds were the province of kings and queens. In fact, in the 13th century, Louis IX of France decreed that only royalty could own diamonds, a dictate which faded away about 100 years later. By the late 15th century, they were used as wedding rings.

The largest diamond ever found was a 3106-carat diamond discovered in 1905 in a mine owned by Thomas Cullinan, for whom the stone was made. It was cut into smaller stones, the largest being made into the 530-carat Great Star of Africa diamond, cut by the Asscher Brothers, a famous diamond firm to this day.

It's also called the Cullinan I diamond, and is set in the Scepter of the Cross of the United Kingdom. A smaller stone cut from the Cullinan diamond is called the Lesser Star of Africa. It weighs 317 carats and is part of the Imperial State Crown. Both gems can be seen as part of the British Crown Jewels which are displayed in the Tower of London. The rest of the Cullinan diamond was cut into 11 smaller-weight stones and a number of fragments.

While the Cullinan diamond is the largest diamond ever found, there is a rumor that the man who discovered the diamond actually broke off part of the diamond before presenting it to the mine’s owner. This diamond, if the rumor is true, would have been 5,000 carats!

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It's hard to imagine that a mineral with a name as mundane as corundum yields gems as exquisite as the ruby and sapphire, or even that these two stones, so different in color and mystique, are actually the same mineral family.

Lucky you if your birthstone is sapphire (September) or ruby (July). These are among the richest-colored of all gemstones with a romance and history as colorful as they are. Rubies are actually rarer than sapphires, and only red corundums are called rubies. Any other color is a sapphire.

When grading colored stones, the density and hue of the color are part of the evaluation, and it's the richest, deepest colors that are the most prized. In rubies, the most prized variant of color is called pigeon's blood.

Large gem quality rubies can be more valuable than comparably sized diamonds and are certainly rarer. There is a relative abundance of smaller, (1-3 carat,) blue sapphires compared to the scarcity of even small gem quality rubies, making even these smaller stones relatively high in value.

Stones of Burmese origin generally command the highest prices. The vast majority of rubies are "native cut" in the country of origin. High value ruby rough is tightly controlled and rarely makes its way to custom cutters. Occasionally, such native stones are recut to custom proportions, albeit at a loss of weight and diameter. Custom cut and recut stones are usually more per carat.

Sapphires exist in all the shades of blue from the deep blue of evening skies to the bright and deep blue of a clear and beautiful summer sky. Sapphires also come in many other colors, not only in the transparent grayish misty blue of far horizons, but also displaying the bright fireworks of sunset colors - yellow, pink, orange and purple. So sapphires are really and truly heavenly stones, although they are being found in the hard soil of our so-called "blue planet".

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