AGATE
Agate is a variety of chalcedony which is a family of microcrystalline quartz. Agate is found in a wide range of colors, including black, gray, brown, red, green, pink, blue and yellow. Agate is often dyed to enhance the coloration.
AFRICAN JADE
African jade is the trade name for green grossular garnet which is mined in South Africa. It is not jade, although it looks like it. It can be green, white or pink.
AMBER
Amber can be translucent yellow, orange, red or brown and is the fossilized resin of pine trees that is about 120 million years old. That is why some amber will have small fragments of vegetation or even insects inside. Most amber comes from the Baltic Sea region. Please note that amber is easily scratched and sensitive to chemicals, abrasives, acids, caustic solutions, alcohol and perfume.
AMETHYST
Amethyst is usually purple, but it can range in color from pale lavender to a very deep purple to a milky color and even green. The deeper the purple color is, the more expensive the stone will be.
APATITE
Apatite occurs in blue, violet, purple, yellowish green and bluish green colors and is found in Burma, Ceylon, Madagascar, Mexico, Canada, India.
AQUAMARINE
Aquamarine is a transparent, light blue or sea-green stone. Heat-treatment turns greenish stones bluer. The best aquamarines come from Brazil.
AVENTURINE
Aventurine is a quartz stone that ranges in color from yellow to red to light green to light brown. It may have a light shimmer which is caused by tiny metallic particles (mica) within the stone.
CARNELIAN
Carnelian ranges in color from bright orange to a brownish red. It is a form of quartz. The best carnelian is from India, but it can come from Australia, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, and USA (Oregon).
CITRINE
Citrine is a rare, yellow type of quartz and ranges in color from pale yellow to orange to golden brown. The best citrine is found in Brazil. Many of the stones sold as citrine are actually amethyst which has been heat-treated to turn yellow.
DENIM LAPIS
Denim lapis is a relatively pale, inexpensive variety of lapis lazuli from Chile. The name refers to its resemblance to denim cloth due to calcite inclusions (which whiten the stone and lower its value).
DUMORTIERITE
Dumortierite is blue to violet in color. Dumortierite is found in Brazil, France and the USA.
FRESHWATER PEARL
A freshwater pearl is a pearl that was harvested from a freshwater mussel (a mollusk). These pearls are frequently shaped like crisped rice cereal, and are less expensive than oyster pearls.
GARNET
Garnets occur in all colors apart from blue, but the most common is a deep wine red. It is found worldwide, among other places in South Africa, Brazil, Germany, Tanzania, Russia, Finland, Canada and Maine, New Hampshire, California. The red garnet is often color-enhanced, but rhodolite garnet is not dyed. Rhodolite garnet is found in the US, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Sri Lanka.
GASPEITE
Gaspeite is a light green to apple green gemstone, sometimes with brown inclusions of its host rock. Gaspeite has only recently been used in jewelry and was discovered in 1966 on the Gaspe Peninsula, Quebec, Canada which is where it got the name Gaspeite from. The quantities available are very limited, and supplies are expected to run out. It is also found in Australia.
GROSSULARITE GARNET
A member of the garnet group, grossularite is found in a variety of colors including, yellow, brown, white, colorless, green, violet-red, and orange. It occurs in Canada, Pakistan, New Zealand, Ceylon, East Africa, South Africa and the USA.
HEAT TREATMENT
Heat treatment involves heating stones to a high temperature in order to enhance the color or clarity. For example, green aquamarine becomes blue with heat treatment and amethyst turns yellow.
HESSONITE GARNET
Hessonite garnet is a variety of grossularite garnet. Most hessonite garnet comes from Sri Lanka.
HEXAGONITE
Hexagonite is a light pink to light purple variety of tremolite and is found in St. Lawrence Co., New York
HILL TRIBES
The Hill Tribes are approximately 20 tribes of semi-nomadic peoples who live in the mountains along the Burmese and Laotian borders of northern Thailand. Each tribe is district, with its own culture, religion, language, art, and dress. A rich part of their cultural tradition is the making and wearing of silver jewelry. As all the Hill Tribes silver is hand-made, each bead or pendant is unique.
IOLITE
Iolite, also known as water sapphire, is a transparent, violet-blue or light blue mineral. Iolite is found in Burma, Brazil, Sri Lanka, India, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Tanzania, Norway, and Finland. The name iolite comes from the Greek word ios which means violet.
JASPER
Jasper is a microcrystalline variety of quartz, and is found in many colors, including white, brown, yellow, red, and green. It is usually multicolored and striped or spotted. It is found all over the world, but comes mainly from Germany, India, Russia, Pakistan, France, and the USA. Brecciated jasper, a red variety, is also known as poppy jasper.
KYANITE
Kyanite can be deep sapphire blue, green, gray or white in color, and is not always uniform. The color can be blotchy or appear in streaks. Kyanite is found in Brazil, Burma, Europe, India, Australia, Kenya and the USA.
LAPIS LAZULI
Lapis lazuli, which is Arabic and Latin for “blue stone”, is a rich blue stone that has been used in jewelry since ancient times. It has been used medicinally and as a pigment for oil paintings. These days Lapis lazuli is often dyed to deepen and improve its color. Lapis lazuli contains the minerals calcite, pyrite and sodalite. It comes from Russia, Angola, Burma, Canada, Chile, United States. The most precious Lapis comes from Afghanistan.
MILLEFIORI
Millefiori is Italian for “thousand flowers”, and is a type of mosaic glassware characterized by a flowerlike pattern. It is produced by first heating a bundle of thin glass rods of different colours until the rods fuse together. The bundle is pulled thin, cooled, and sliced cross-sectionally to produce small disks with flowerlike designs. These glass beads were mainly produced in Venice in the early 1800s.
OBSIDIAN
Obsidian is a natural glass that forms from volcanic activity. It is usually black, but is occasionally red, brown, gray, green (rare), and dark with snowflakes. Obsidian is formed when viscous lava cools rapidly. It is found world-wide, wherever there is or has been volcanic activity, but the main locations are Russia, Norway, Mexico, California, Washington and Arizona.
ONYX
Onyx is a type of microcrystalline quartz which comes in several colors and is often banded. Black onyx is actually a deep gray-colored chalcedony. The stone is then heat-treated to achieve the desired jet black color.
PERIDOT
Peridot is bright transparent yellow-green or olive green. Most peridot is from a volcanic island in the Red Sea, Zebergit/St. John, but it is also found in Burma, Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Pakistan, and Arizona and Hawaii. Peridot has also been found in meteorites.
QUARTZ
Quartz is a crystalline mineral that comes in many forms, including amethyst, aventurine, citrine, opal, rock crystal, tiger's eye, rose quartz, and many others. It is found in Germany, Brazil, England, New York and Arkansas. Ancient people believed that quartz crystal was petrified ice. Rose Quartz is one of the most desired forms of quartz, but it is often dyed. Cherry quartz is actually glass.
SODALITE
Sodalite is a dark blue mineral with streaks of white, gray, pink, or green. Sodalite is one of the mineral components of lapis lazuli. Sodalite is found in Brazil, Canada, India, Italy, Namibia, United States, and Russia.
STERLING SILVER
Sterling silver is silver with a fineness of 925, which means that it contains 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% copper. The Hill Tribes silver is often purer than sterling silver, up to 99% pure silver.
SUNSTONE
Sunstone varies from golden to orange to red-brown, and can be transparent or translucent. Sunstone is metallic-looking due to hematite inclusions that reflect the light. Sunstone is found in Canada, the USA (in Oregon), India, Norway, and Russia. Sunstone is not enhanced.
TANZANITE
Tanzanite is a rare and valuable, transparent, blue-violet gemstone resembling sapphire. It is often heat-treated in order to produce a deeper blue-violet color. This mineral was discovered in 1967 south-west of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa, and it is still only found only in Tanzania near the town of Arusha.
TOURMALINE
Tourmaline is a gemstone noted for the large and unsurpassed range of colors in which it occurs. The name comes from Singhalese tourmalli, meaning “mixed colored stones”. It is found in Afghanistan, Brazil, Pakistan, Siberia and the USA (California, New Jersey, New York).
TURQUOISE
Turquoise is a porous semi-precious stone that occurs in shades of blue and green, often with a matrix which is streaks of the host rock it was found in. Persian turquoise is robin's egg blue and has no matrix. North American turquoise is greener and has matrix streaks, although turquoise from the Sleeping Beauty Mine in Arizona is a vivid clear blue. Often turquoise is soft and porous when mined. To make it suitable for jewelry use, it is sometimes permeated with a clear resin, a process which is called stabilization. This process hardens the turquoise and makes it more resistant.
Turquoise was first found in Turkey, hence its name, but these days it comes from desert regions all over the world, including Egypt, Pakistan, Tibet, Mexico, Russia, Chile, Australia, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.
YELLOW TURQUOISE
Yellow turquoise is not turquoise, but is commonly called so, because it occurs in the same mines as real turquoise. Yellow turquoise is a blend of quartz and jaspers.
