Semiprecious stones
A precious or semiprecious stone is a piece of attractive mineral. Certain rocks like amber are organic material but are also used for jewellery, and therefore often considered to be gemstones as well. The notion precious stone is subjective en depends of the culture in which we live.
The last centuries precious stones are divided in two categories namely precious and semiprecious stones.
A semiprecious stone is a mineral which does not belong to the 4 groups of precious stones: diamond, sapphire, ruby or emerald. Like all precious stones they have a specific hardness and refraction but possess only parltly the properties of precious stones and that is why they also be said as semiprecious stones.
Amazonite. colour varies from light to green blue.they are found in Brazil, Austalia and the U.S.A.It is called the"hope stone because it inspires confidence and hope...
Bamboo coral is found in Japan and China. it is matte in appearance, with small scratches or holes.It is often filled with wax to smooth inperfections.Dye is used as well to bring about a more uniform color, mostly red or orange.
Chalcedony or chalcedon is found in Brazil, Madagaskar, Uruquay and India. the colour is almost white or light blue but is also found in the colours Green , pink red ( than it is called a carneool) and copper colour.By heating the stone the colour change in beautiful different colours.
Howlite. the mineral howlite is white with often black veines.It is a porous stone and often it is coloured to imitate other stones specially turquoise.
Freshwater pearls are cultured pearls which grow in non-saline environment in freshwater mussels.
Freshwaterpearls are generally grafted using a piece of mantle tissue only, without a bead. This small piece of mantle tissue is placed into an incision in the host mussel’s mantle instead of the gonad. Both sides of the valve can accept grafts, and an average freshwater mussel will produce 24 to 32 pearls per culturing cyclus.
Generally speaking,freshwater pearls are not as round as saltwater pearls, they appear in a wide variety of shapes and natural colours, and they tend to be less expensive than saltwater pearls.
Keshi pearls are nonbeaded pearls formed by accident as a by-product of a pearl culturing operation. They can be salt or freshwater, their shapes vary widely and also in a wide variety of colours.
Nugget pearls have a flat upperside and round side
Sea shell pearls look like South sea pearls but they are not.. They are made by hand. They use shell powder in a combination with a binding substance and dip small plastic beads in this substance.
Prehnite; its color varies from light green to yellow, but also colorless, blue or white. It is mostly translucent, and rarely transparent. It has a mother of pearl glow. it's found in Australie,England, France, U.SA. and South Afrika.