What specifically are gems and gemstones? We know some of the most common ones – emeralds, rubies, sapphires and diamonds. But what exactly are they, how are they made and why we do we prize them so highly?
The International Gem Society defines a gem as “a mineral that has been chosen for its beauty and durability, then cut and polished for human adornment.”
Most gems are minerals. Others, like pearls or amber, are created from living organisms. Usually gems are of a color that mirrors other natural elements we consider beautiful or valuable. Emeralds mirror the lush green of plant life, sapphires are the color of the sky and rubies are a rich blood-red. There are variations in color in all of these gems, of course, and in diamonds, but those are the colors most normally associated with them. Diamonds can come in colors as well, with pink and canary diamonds being highly prized variants.
Most gems are hard and durable, although pearls can be easily damaged, as can opals and moonstones. Usually a gemstone has to be durable enough to wear as adornment, but others, while too soft to wear, are valued by collectors. Pearls can eventually disintegrate, even if all you do is wipe dust off them. And if you spray hairspray or perfume on them, this can also damage your pearls.
Opals are highly prized for their beauty and fire and make exquisite jewelry, but are extraordinarily susceptible to damage. They can shatter easily if dropped. And there’s a story of a woman who wore an opal brooch to a holiday party. When she left the warmth of the party to leave and the brooch experienced the sudden drop in temperature, it shattered, just like a glass that’s been heated and then cooled too quickly.
The smart groom-to-be does his research before buying his fiancée a diamond ring! There are more styles and cuts to choose from than ever before. It’s not enough to be educated about the four Cs of diamonds – cut, color, clarity and carats. Now there are all types of diamond cuts and settings to choose from.
The most popular style is still the round brilliant. It’s one of the earliest cuts ever developed and now relies on precise mathematical equations to create a stone with fire and brilliance that the earliest gem cutters could only have dreamed of.
But many brides want something completely unique. There are many traditional cuts to choose from. A pear-shaped is just that – wider at one end than the other. Or she can choose an oval, emerald or heart-shaped diamond. There are other cuts with unique faceting, such as the square princess-cut diamond.
Some cuts are patented, like the elongated Ashoka diamond or the Asprey & Garrard Eternal cut diamond. Other branded and patented cuts include:
Elara – a square-cut diamond with rounded corners
Asscher – a square diamond with rounded facets that gives an unusual complexity to the diamond
Couples diamond – this diamond is faceted to reveal either a circle of hearts or arrows inside. It’s a truly unusual diamond that requires precise cutting for the image to appear properly.
The price of a diamond increases exponentially with its carat weight. A one-carat diamond costs much more than 10 10-point diamonds and a two-carat diamond costs more than twice as much as a one-carat diamond (given equal quality in other areas).
One way to enhance a ring is with embellishments such as baguettes or trillions. A baguette is a small emerald-shaped diamond that can be placed on either side of the main stones and a trillion is a triangle-shaped diamond that also is a good enhancement to the center stone.
Our love of diamonds and admiration of their fire and brilliance has given rise to many different cuts of diamonds. While we still see some of the earliest styles of diamond cuts – such as the round and emerald-cut, there are many more cuts today, some of them patented by their designers and costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The most popular cut for a diamond ring today is still the round, brilliant cut. It was developed in the 17th century in Venice. It is still preferred when the raw crystal is in an octahedron formation. Even though as much as 50% of the stone is cut away in the process, often two stones can be carved from an octahedron. More unusually-shaped stones are used for fancy cuts, such as a marquise, pear or heart-shaped diamond. The earliest brilliants had 17 facets on the top of the stone and were called double-cut. This was soon improved with stones cut with 33 facets and were called triple-cut brilliants.
In the 19th century, with the development of better gem-cutting tools, more innovations in diamond cutting styles were developed. In 1919, Marcel Tolkowsky combined the art of cutting with the science of light and refraction and published his book, Diamond Design. These relatively recent geometric calculations were the forerunner of much of diamond cutting work today and led to other, more precise mathematical models engineered to enhance the fire and brilliance of diamonds.
There are now cuts such as the princess cut, trillions, ovals, pear and heart-shaped. Some innovative cutters have even fashioned star or butterfly-shaped diamonds! One patented cut, the Ashoka diamond, is an oblong cut with rounded, brilliant ends, and requires a stone 3 carats or larger. It’s an exceptionally beautiful (and pricey!) diamond shape. Tiffany has also patented a cut of diamond called the Lucida cut. It’s the lucky bride whose fiancé gives her one of these highly coveted stones!
Gem cutting – how it has changed over the years (50% of the original rough diamond is lost during the cutting of a round brilliant gem)
How does a lump of mineral or crystal become a dazzling diamond, ruby or sapphire? It’s an amazing process called gem cutting or lapidary and makes all the difference in the final value of the stone. It was developed first in Venice in the early 1300’s and was seen in Paris and Bruges in the mid-1400s.Good cutting is a precise art that catches the light just so, and captures the beauty of the gem. Poor cutting destroys it.
Most gems start out actually being sawed with a special lapidary saw into a rough shape, such as square, round, pear or marquise. It’s then ground with a diamond-infused wheel to further refine the shape. The gem cutter uses a series of finer and finer abrasives to get closer to the clear heart of the gem. Cabochon gems are polished to a smooth overall surface, sometimes held by hand, but more often fixed or “dopped” with wax or adhesive to a dowel to hold it while the lapidarist polishes the stone.
Transparent stones are most often faceted, a process where flat planes of the stone are cut and polished over the surface in a precise, symmetrical pattern. It’s critical that the planes match up perfectly, or the beauty of how the light is captured by the facets will be lost.
If a stone is cut to flat or not polished, the brilliance of the gem will also be lost. When a stone is properly faceted, it captures the light so it bounces around inside the stone, giving it the sparkle we love and that helps determine the value of the gem. If the stone is cut too flat, or the facets don’t meet precisely, the light doesn’t bounce off the angles in the facets to maximum effect.