Antique Jewelry

Coral is an organic gem material much like pearls. It is made out of calcium carbonate with a small amount of carotene. Coral grows into small trees with branches in anywhere from 3 to 300 meters of warm salt water. It can be found in the African coasts, Australia, Japan, the Mediterranean coasts, Malaysia and the West Indies. Today, fragile coral is harvested by deep sea divers where just the...

Aquamarine rings are a favorite because of its blue to blue-green color. The word comes from the Latin phrase meaning “water of the sea” and is truly the color of the tropic waters in the Caribbean. Aquamarine stones are from the mineral beryl. It is a very common stone in its lighter color but can be much more expensive in its darker shade of blue-green. This gemstone can fade when...

Your jade ring is a gem variety of either nephrite or jadeite. Although they are commonly thought to be the same, they are actually two different minerals and it is hard to distinguish one from the other. Jadeite and nephrite jade come in a variety of colors-dark and light shades of red, green, blue, white, black and lavender, to name a few. The most valuable and sought after color is...

Garnets are the birthstone for January. A deep red color is most common but they come in every shade of the rainbow except blue. As early as the time of the Egyptian pharaohs, garnets were popular. They have been found with their mummified corpses. Garnets were very popular in the 19th and 20th century and are a popular stone today because it is common and inexpensive. If you look hard...