Semi Precious Stones

(via Mineral Digest) Louis Zara writes:

Semi precious stones don’t exist. This is contrary to one of the jewelry industry’s most cherished myths. Nevertheless, it’s true: there are no semi-precious stones. Every gemstone, if it deserves the name at all, is either precious or it is not precious—as simple as that. Semi-precious is as meaningless as semi-attractive or semi-honest.

Consider the criteria applied to gemstones: value; hardness; scarcity; beauty. This order is such that what can he had easily is not valued highly. If diamonds were only fifty cents a carat, how many girls would want one for the engagement ring? If rubies were as plenty as raisins, would anyone care to wear them? I believe, no matter how hard or rare or valuable a gemstone may be, its beauty come first.

Today the diamond is accepted as the king because it is the hardest, and therefore the most durable, of gemstones. The jeweler likes diamonds because he can, or at least in sizes under five carats, always get more for his customers. Yet, except in larger sizes, diamonds are common. Beautiful rubies, even in smaller sizes, are harder to obtain, and emeralds without flaw are almost impossible to find. Diamond outranks them for hardness and brilliance, but, to many, rubies and emeralds are more beautiful.

If hardness is the only criterion, where should we rank opal, which has such flashing red, blue, and green fire that no lover of beauty can look at it without admiration? Each individual opal displays an exquisiteness of its own: Far easier to match diamonds than to match opals. Yet compared to diamond, ruby or sapphire, the opal is soft and must be worn with care. Are opals then to be dismissed as semi-precious?

What shall we say about jade, which in the imperial green quality is as fine as the elegant emerald and even scarcer, so that a great jade necklace must rank among the world’s splendid jewels? Jade cannot be compared to diamond, ruby or sapphire, but should it therefore be called semi-precious?

The average jeweler may resent these statements; his primary aim is to sell, and he can sell diamonds more readily than rubies, sapphires, opals or jade. Yet to those of us who are interested in educating the public, opals and jade, and the many other gems now blandly classed as semi-precious, deserve more intelligent appreciation, especially since their remarkable beauty delights the millions of new gem lovers.

Another example: red garnets have been plentiful since antiquity. Yet clear red garnets of appealing size are not common, the orange garnet hessonite is scarce in large sizes, and the rare green demantoid garnet, hardly known to the public, has an appeal that rivals the emerald. Fine demantoids or rhodolites, make truly impressive gemstones. Shall these, too, be labeled semi-precious?

No gem mineral displays a broader range of colors than the tourmaline. The greens have been relatively abundant. But large reds are scarce, and sapphire blues even scarcer, while the splendid watermelon tourmalines (greens and red together) are most unusual. Are such gems, too, semi-precious?

What about the alexandrite, that astonishing variety of chrysoberyl which is green in daylight and raspberry red by artificial light? It is harder than emerald. No gem is scarcer in sizes over four or five carats. Should the alexandrite, too, be put down as semi-precious?

What of aquamarine, which is a beryl and so is kin to the emerald? What of the amethyst, plentiful to be sure, but in truly lovely violet-purples and dark reds amazingly handsome?

What we seem to come down to is an economic criterion. If a gemstone is scarce, or an artificial demand has been created, that gemstone goes up in value, and is hailed as precious. If a gemstone is abundant, it is branded semi-precious.

Maybe that was acceptable when gems were chiefly status symbols. The rich dominated the market, and the rich must have only the precious. But in the last generation or so, with wider knowledge of Nature’s large family of gemstones becoming available, the emphasis has been less on status and more on beauty—and beauty is not restricted to the traditional Big Four: diamond, ruby, sapphire and emerald.

Today young people, whose horizons on gemstones have broadened, turn more and more to garnets, tourmalines, and topazes of all colors, to amethysts, and to many other gems little appreciated by their fathers. Try to sell this new generation of gem lovers that a rich blue lapis lazuli or a remarkable green jade or a delicate peach morganite is merely semi-precious!

The time has come for the diamond, ruby, sapphire and emerald to share the world precious with other stones. For in the world of gems, a stone is either precious or it is not precious. Semi-precious stones do not exist.