FACETED Green Emerald Cut EMERALD Vintage GEMSTONE 17.65 cts fg32

Vintage Brazilian green emerald, natural and untreated, emerald cut, 25.82 carats and with dimensions 17.8 x 15.3 x 7.5 mm.

Beryl is the chief ore of the element beryllium and is mined in large quantities throughout the world. The ore material is opaque, but transparent beryl is also widespread and is cut into faceted gemstones. Like tourmaline, pure beryl is colorless (goshenite) but chemical impurities in the growth environment impart a huge variety of hues, creating color varieties. Manganese yields pink beryl, called morganite, and iron can produce yellow, or golden beryl, as well as a blue or blue-green variety called aquamarine, named after the color of sea water.

Chromium in beryl produces a dark green variety called emerald. Emerald has, for millennia, been considered (along with diamond, ruby and sapphire) to be a precious (i.e. high value) gemstone.

Beryl typically forms in coarse granitic rocks called pegmatites, in which the element chromium is very seldom found. The dark rocks that usually contain chromium are formed in ways that are not condusive to the crystallization of beryl. This disparity is why emeralds are rare. Chromium also has a hard time fitting comfortably within the beryl structure, and the resulting stress forces crystals to grow with numerous imperfections. Emeralds are therefore never truly flawless - a good thing, in fact, because the characteristic inclusions in natural emeralds allow them to be distinguished from the many synthetic emeralds that pervade the gemstone marketplace. The jewelry trade has tried to improve the psychology of seeing pervasive flaws in a gemstone by calling emerald inclusions jardin (French for garden). Emeralds are almost always treated to minimize the prominence of these inclusions, by means of oil, plastic and other substances that fill cracks and allow light to pass through them instead of being reflected. It has reached the stage where all emeralds are assumed to be treated in some way, and a premium is placed on emeralds than can be proven to be untreated.

The finest emeralds come from Colombia, Afghanistan, the Malagasay Republic (Madagascar), Zimbabwe and Russia. Brazil also produces large quantities of emerald, much of which contains only a trace of chromium. These stones are true emeralds but not as dark a green as stones from other localities. They are also typically filled with interesting inclusions, making them more translucent than transparent. Price in gems is almost always a function of color, clarity and size, so these typical Brazilian emeralds are far less expensive than the rare and costly clean, dark green gems we see in museums and large estates. One positive aspect of the lower-grade Brazilian stones is that they are almost never treated, so the color and clarity are usually natural.

This Brazilian emerald is typical of the locality. It is amazing to consider that the same stone, if dark green and eye-clean, might cost more than $250,000!

Emerald is the birthstone for May. It is reputed by gem healers to enhance memory, quiet emotions, and improve eyesight.

The price is for the one faceted Brazilian emerald, which we guarantee to be natural untreated material and produced in the early 1970s.