There are many kinds of gems, so I won't introduce them one by one here, just to give enthusiasts some easy-to-understand concepts.

Gems in a broad sense, to be exact, are all raw materials suitable for pondering and carving into exquisite jewelry and handicrafts. It involves two categories: pearls and treasures. Include inorganic gemstones and organic gemstones.

Precious stone in a narrow sense: a single mineral crystal with bright color, flawless transparency, high hardness, stable chemical properties or slightly poor transparency in nature, but with special optical effect and particle size greater than 3MM is called a gem.

Natural gemstones must meet the following requirements:

1, Beauty: Jewelry and handicrafts must give people a strange aesthetic feeling and make people look rich and elegant. Minerals used as gems must be coarse (more than 3MM), bright-colored, transparent and have few defects. If the transparency is slightly poor, there must be special optical effects, such as color change (opal), color change (stone change), starlight (starlight sapphire), cat's eye (opal or beryl cat's eye) and so on. At present, more than 3,000 kinds of minerals have been found in the world, but there are only more than 20 kinds of common gem minerals.

Gem is the only gem mineral with beautiful color, transparency or special optical effects. For example, ruby is corundum, but corundum is opaque and has many defects, so it can't be used as a gem. For another example, transparent diamonds with few defects can be used as diamonds, and inferior diamonds cannot be used as gems.

2. Long-term: Gemstone products are mostly hereditary and must be durable. At present, diamonds are popular all over the world as diamond ornaments and wedding tokens. In addition to its high refractive index and brilliant luster, diamond is the most hard and durable treasure in the world, which is not afraid of corrosion and has the meaning of' eternity'. Another example is the Shang Dynasty nephrite Yu Pei stored in the Forbidden City and the turquoise inlaid on the hook during the Warring States Period. Although it has gone through more than 3000 years, it is still moist in color and clear in pattern, without losing its true colors. Therefore, most gems are silicate minerals, with high hardness and corrosion resistance, as well as a small amount of oxides and single minerals.

3, less: things are rare, and anything beautiful is worthless if it is everywhere. For example, the seventh largest pink ruby in the world, weighing 32 or 24 carats, has changed hands several times. The earliest owner was the Indian monarch. 1526 After India was conquered by Mughal, this ruby became a tribute of Mughal emperor. He used it as an ornament on his headscarf. In the19th century, the Duke of Brunswick in Germany and a jeweler in London once owned it. 1990, American gem collectors Louis and Winston sent it to the auction house. On June 20th, after fierce competition from Christie's auction house in London, this pink ruby was auctioned to a jeweler in Hong Kong for 4.07 million pounds, setting a record for the auction. The reason why this gem is so expensive is that its experience is unique except for its heavy weight. For example, the physical and chemical characteristics of artificial rubies are similar to those of natural rubies, and they also belong to the category of gems. However, when people buy them, they would rather have expensive natural rubies than extremely low-priced artificial rubies. This is enough to illustrate the meaning of less.

Eryu

The ancients said, "Jade is as beautiful as stone". In nature, any rock with fine texture, tenacity, strong luster and bright color composed of a single mineral or multiple minerals can be used as jade.

Jade has a long history of application. Among the cultural relics of the four ancient civilizations in the world, there are jade carvings. With the development of history and the use of jade materials, the varieties of jade have been increasing and decreasing. So far, jade is different from jade. At present, jade in the world refers to jadeite and nephrite. Other jade carving stones are collectively called jade.

At present, the most popular high-quality jadeite varieties in the world are Burmese jadeite and China nephrite. The value of high-quality emeralds is comparable to that of diamonds. In addition, Iranian and China turquoise and Afghan lapis lazuli are enduring. Recently, andalusite, anorthite, Australian chrysotile, Brazilian hibiscus, tiger spar and agate from the former Soviet Union have been widely used. Jade from China, Chawoshi (hydrogrossular) from dushan jade and Kenya are all very popular jade varieties.

The difference between jadeite and nephrite

Emerald: Jadeite is the main one, which is a collection of pyroxene minerals. However, natural jadeite always contains 1-52% of other pyroxene minerals, such as diopside, hedenbergite aegirine and a small amount of chrome spinel. According to the proportion of the mixture, the chemical composition is different. (omitted here)

Nephrite: Also called nephrite or Hetian jade, nephrite is produced in many places in the world, but nephrite produced in Hetian County, Xinjiang, China has the longest application history, so Felsmann, a geologist in the former Soviet Union, called nephrite Chinese jade. Nephrite is an aggregate of tremolite-actinolite minerals and a small amount of diopside, chlorite, serpentine, calcite, graphite magnetite and other minerals. The color of nephrite depends on the color of the constituent minerals. Hetian jade in Xinjiang should be white, dark green and gray. Nephrite produced in Taiwan Province Province should be brown-green. The biggest feature of nephrite color is that it is uniform except for green jasper.