was the key to their success. Why?.
Natural glass: obsidian and moldavite
Natural glass tends to be overlooked as a gemstone because of the extensive use of manufactured glass in gemstone
Malachite
Malachite was so popular in the 19th century that the Russian royal family panelled whole rooms with it, and the
Faceted Square Cuts
The second group of faceted cuts includes straight-sided girdle shapes: squares, rectangles, octagons, triangles,
Peridot (also olivin or Chrysolite)
When peridot is good, it is very good, but when it is bad ... There is so much pale and lacklustre material around it
Quartz
Quartz is the biggest gemstone species of all, and one of the most widely used in modern jewelry making. This is an
Hematite
The metallic silver-grey crystal surfaces of specular hematite are so highly reflective that they were used in the past
Alexandrite
Alexandrite is a transparent gemstone with a remarkable colour-change property: it appears leaf green in daylight and
