Many people have special affection to certain gemstones – some consider diamonds the one and only, while others are mesmerized by sapphires or pearls. My first love were diamonds for sure.
It started in Australia while I was working for a jewellery company in Sydney. The beautiful pink stones from Western Australia’s Argyle mine enticed me to know more about how diamonds form and how clever hands cut and finish them. I completed a certified diamond grader course at HRD Antwerp. It has given me new perspectives and ever since, I’d never miss an opportunity to experience any specimen let it be pink or E color, included or flawless. However the more jewellery you see, your horizon widens and you become interested in other gemstones.
Gemfields and Fabergé are the perfect partners to escort you in the world of coloured gemstones. Gemfields is one of the largest producers of emeralds, rubies and amethysts. In 2013 the company acquired Fabergé to operate in the two most profitable segments of the gemstone industry and elevate Fabergé to #1 jeweller for these coloured stones. No wonder why it was special to see the bright “Summer in Provence” high jewellery necklace and the artistic “Secret Garden” bracelet at last Baselworld. Both taking your breath away with turquoises, emeralds, Paraiba tourmalines, pink sapphires, red spinels, Siberian jade, green tsavorites, yellow sapphires and raspberry spinels.
Last week I had the chance to visit Fabergé and enjoy the guidance of two lovely ladies in the Mayfair boutique.
Recently, Fabergé launched its new campaign: “Forever. And ever.” and presented the Devotion collection including “big three” gemstones. Emeralds, rubies and sapphires being many times rarer than diamonds, are real luxuries and it is so easy to fall in love with these jewels. The Devotion Collection exemplifies these colours and includes rings in different styles; whether you’re looking for something lavish and ornate or contemporary and simple, you will find your new “best friend”.
Blue
Sapphire is a variety of the mineral corundum, and its colour is most typically blue. The sapphire’s value is mainly based on colour, clarity, size, cut, overall quality and the geographic origin. Significant sapphire deposits are located in Eastern Australia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, China (Shandong), Madagascar and East Africa. The intensity, the hue and the saturation of the colour are also very characteristic and vary by origin; for example Kashmir sapphires are a cornflower colour and have a slightly milky surface. Burmese are darker royal blue and Sri Lankan are generally bigger and lighter coloured sapphires.
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Fabergé Devotion sapphire ring
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Green
As per the records, emeralds were first discovered about 4,000 years ago in Egypt. It is a variety of the mineral beryl. Most emeralds are highly included and it is extremely hard to find “clean” emeralds. As Gemfields describes “unlike most gemstones, the mineralisation of emeralds can only happen when two different rock types with contrasting characteristics under unique conditions come into contact with one another, which makes it one of the rarest gemstones. For Zambian emeralds, it was the specific combination of the 1.6 billion year-old high-grade metamorphic rock named the Talc Magnetite Schist and the younger 500 million year old intruding pegmatite.” The result is a rich and saturated green colour, from bright green with yellowish undertones to a vibrant green with bluish undertones.
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Fabergé Devotion emerald ring
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Red
Hindus composed the earliest written accounts of ruby or “ratnaraj” (“king of the gemstones” in ancient Sanskrit) and it has always been highly esteemed in Oriental countries. It is a pink to blood-red coloured gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, with a hardness of 9.0 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. The Mogok Valley in Upper Myanmar (Burma) was for centuries the world’s main source for rubies. There are mines in Thailand, Madagascar, Tanzania and Mozambique, among others. Mozambican rubies are often rich pinkish-red, while others have the colour of “pigeon’s blood,” “pomegranate”, “China Rose” or “traffic light red.”
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Fabergé Devotion ruby ring
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Photo credits: Loupiosity.com.
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