An Atypical Guide to Gems: The Colour Of Gemstones

Our guide to gems will tell you what most other guides won’t tell you, which is: do not judge a stone by its colour. When shopping for a gem.

For if you only knew the secrets we bear to set that stone you choose or did not choose.

A typical gem guide will tell you to look out for cut and colour and size and origin – all the things you probably already know about. Those things are important if all you are doing is buying a gem based on numbers and figures, but let’s not forget that most of us buy gems to use in jewellery.

Only when the gem is set in jewellery will it look complete. And whatever the colour and quality of a gem, it is the setting that will reveal the potential of a gemstone.

What I mean is, we can set a gem to look the colour you desire, or set a gem to look differently from what it looks like when you bought it.

Jewellery is an emotional thing, personal only to you. Don’t be too caught up by the specs you need to tick off your list when choosing a gemstone.

guide to gems: blue sapphires
Gem shopping. Because WYSINotWYG, when it comes to the colour of a gem. A GIA certificate can tell you a part of the story, but only one part.
Trick or Treat: Interplay of Stone and Gold

We come to jewellery as artists first, then craftsman jewellers; that makes us a particular band of thieves. Distinct from jewellers who work with craftsmen, we would like to believe our work is more holistic, relaying what we know about the stone to the gold work, inseparable and yet each wholly considered.

We are able to do the Robin Hoodesque thing, take a lacklustre gemstone and make a memorable piece out of it, or eyeball a rare but largely ignored stone for its potential.

Because we work at both stone and gold level, we are in a unique position to understand that the buyer-shopper-customer will not know what s/he does not know.

Accompanying Stones

In order to get a better market price, diamonds are always used to accent a main gem. If you look at jewelry store display, it is likely the diamonds were the thing that drew your eyes to the blue sapphire ring. Yet on its own, you may not have noticed the blue sapphire ring.

But it is not always necessary, or beautiful. Many times the blue of a vivid sapphire is set to ‘compete’ with accent diamonds. Paying for a worthy blue sapphire becomes overrated this way.

Ridiculing the sapphire (or other stone) can happen in more ways than one. Things get even more complicated when it comes to colour change gems! We have a saying here:

Only diamonds love light; coloured stones do not.

Do you wonder why?

These old-timer truths are neither easy to understand nor to account for during design. But heed you must, unless one ideal is more important than the other, but you cannot be unaware of unaligned goals.

Frame Set or Prong Set

Around a small stone, the bezel (frame) may be too thick with gold. Around a big stone, the prongs may be too conspicuous. Furthermore, in both cases, open or close back settings is sometimes decided with textbook (simplistic) promises to the unsuspecting shopper-customer.

What happens then of the gem you bought? The one you chose for this or that reason?

What we are saying is this – there is not a best way to set a coloured gem to get the best colour, but there is always a better way.

The better way is ‘better’ for having satisfied several sometimes unaligned ideals.

Open Back or Close Back

For the final time, open back will not mean more light to the gemstone. You do wear it on your finger don’t you? Light is sealed off this way.

And for the first time perhaps, there is such a thing as a “stone whisperer”. Its job description is to coax the colour out of the stone, to be more of a gem OR less of a stone.

Without revealing too much, let’s summon “the stone whisperer”.

The Stone Whisperer
guide to gems: star sapphires
Natural star sapphires in close shades. Which to pick?

Textbooks will tell you which gem to choose. Your heart will not, or is unsure.

But guess what? It matters only, a little.

If you have a beautiful rock, you must know why. Then make the necessary steps to ensure that is the focus of design.

If you have a less than beautiful rock, you must know why. Then make the necessary steps to ensure design addresses that.

Both scenarios can get the same outcomes. If you know this, you already know a little of what the stone whisperer knows!

And both scenarios are only possible if you work with an intuitive jeweller, who works at both stone and gold level.

guide to gems: how to choose gemstones
Natural spinels in the red family. Is one more valuable than the other? Which will partner well with an INTP?

 

guide to gems: fancy diamonds
It is easy to know which to pick out. Especially once you know these are diamonds.

 

guide to gems: fancy diamonds
It is harder to understand that part of beauty is its relativity. Without which beauty becomes dull, like a still body of water versus the sea.

When you take a stone out of the ground, working at both stone and gold levels matter. If the stone remains un-mined, or for that matter, uncut, who cares???

Working at both stone and gold level is a very long journey. We are still on that journey.

If you know all this now, you want to make sure your jeweller knows too.

Don’t fuss too much about the colour of a gem. Spend more time knowing what you really want, and find the right partner to work with you on your project.

Because WYSINotWYG, when it comes to the colour of a gem. A certificate can tell you a part of the story, but only one part. The evidence to this is the plenty of forgettable jewelry out there, their quality fully certified, yet their beauty and their meaning fully compromised.

Like this article? You might also like our other atypical guide to heated vs unheated sapphire.

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