Gemstone Education
| PICTURE | NAME | ELEVATOR PITCH | THE FACTS | DESCRIPTION | COLORS | BIRTHSTONE/ANNIVERSARY | HARDNESS | |
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DIAMOND | Diamonds are among nature’s most precious and beautiful creations. | The hardest gem of all is made of just one element: carbon. It’s valued for its colorless nature and purity. Most diamonds are primeval—over a billion years old—and form deep within the earth. | Diamond forms under high temperature and pressure conditions that exist only about 100 miles beneath the earth’s surface. Diamond’s carbon atoms are bonded in essentially the same way in all directions. Another mineral, graphite, also contains only carbon, but its formation process and crystal structure are very different. Graphite is so soft that you can write with it, while diamond is so hard that you can only scratch it with another diamond. | Colorless | April 60th and 75th wedding anniversaries |
10 | |
| FANCY COLORED DIAMOND | Dazzling brilliance. Captivating color. The planet’s most valued gems are fancy color diamonds. | Fine color diamonds are the most rare and costly of all gemstones. Their ranks include the world’s most famous jewel—the Hope—and the most expensive gem ever auctioned—The Graff Pink. | Gem diamonds in GIA’s D-to-Z range usually decrease in value as the color becomes more obvious. Just the opposite happens with fancy color diamonds: Their value generally increases with the strength and purity of the color. Large, vivid fancy color diamonds are extremely rare and very valuable. However, many fancy diamond colors are muted rather than pure and strong. | Yellow, Pink, Blue, Brown, Red | April 10th and 60th anniversaries; Fancy color diamond adds a unique twist to your celebration. |
10 | ||
| RUBY | Ruby is the most valuable variety of the corundum mineral species, which also includes sapphire. | Traces of chromium give this red variety of the mineral corundum its rich color. Long valued by humans of many cultures. In ancient Sanskrit, ruby was called ratnaraj, or “king of precious stones.” | Rubies can command the highest per-carat price of any colored stone. This makes ruby one of the most important gems in the colored stone market. In its purest form, the mineral corundum is colorless. Trace elements that become part of the mineral’s crystal structure cause variations in its color. Chromium is the trace element that causes ruby’s red color. | Red | July 15th and 40th anniversaries |
9 | ||
| SAPPHIRE | The name “sapphire” can also apply to any corundum that’s not ruby, another corundum variety. | Depending on their trace element content, sapphire varieties of the mineral corundum might be blue, yellow, green, orange, pink, purple or even show a six-rayed star if cut as a cabochon. | Besides blue sapphire and ruby, the corundum family also includes so-called “fancy sapphires.” They come in violet, green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, and intermediate hues. Some stones exhibit the phenomenon known as color change, most often going from blue in daylight or fluorescent lighting to purple under incandescent light. Sapphires can even be gray, black, or brown. | Blue, all other colors | September 5th and 45th anniversaries |
9 | ||
| EMERALD | Emerald is the bluish green to green variety of beryl, a mineral species that includes aquamarine. | The most valued variety of beryl, emerald was once cherished by Spanish conquistadors, Inca kings, Moguls, and pharaohs. Today, fine gems come from Africa, South America, and Central Asia. | Gem experts differ on the degree of green that makes one stone an emerald and another stone a less-expensive green beryl. Most gemologists, gemological laboratories, and colored stone dealers call a stone green beryl when its color is “too light” for it to be classified as emerald. Even among that group, however, there’s a difference of opinion about what’s considered “too light.” | Green | May 20th and 35th wedding anniversaries. |
7.5 - 8 |