Stories of Gems

Today, I want to tackle one of those terms the retail industry uses – “precious gemstones.” When I was studying to be a gemologist, I learned that diamond is the ultimate precious gemstone. In the land of colored stones, ruby, sapphire, and emerald are the only three considered precious. We call the them “the big three.” That means all other gemstones are merely semi-precious. So of course I wondered why that was, and who gets to decide. Precious versus semiprecious gemstone

Fun facts about the jewelry worn when America was just a baby!