All known and unknown gemstones

Gemstones are an amazing and unusual phenomenon in people's lives. First of all, because it is sometimes difficult to understand why some stones are considered gemstones, while others are not, why some stones are valued very, very expensive, while others, sometimes no less beautiful, can be bought cheaply.

Indeed, who decides which stones are gemstones?

It is not easy to answer this question, especially since at different times in human history certain gemstones were valued differently. And the reasons for the assessment were also very different. Sometimes it is the beauty of the stone, in another case it is its hardness, in the third case it is the rarity of the stone, in other cases it is some other reasons, sometimes even several at once. And the current characteristics of the assessment of stones depend on many reasons.

The more interesting it is to learn more about gemstones. After all, there are cases when gems that are really good in many respects can be bought inexpensively. It also happens that a stone is valued at a much larger amount than it is worth.

But gemstones are interesting not only for the price. Many of them can tell very interesting and surprising details. So, for example, there are gemstones that flew to us from unknown cosmic depths (like the precious stones of moldavite), others owe their origin to dinosaurs that have disappeared now (these gems are called dinobons), others reveal their features only under certain conditions (like asteria - gemstones with an unusual and very beautiful star effect that occurs when light hits the surface of a gemstone). And there are also such stones that are valuable only because they can imitate others - more famous ones (for example, the howlite gemstone is a well-known imitation of turquoise). It is definitely worth mentioning another interesting gem - cubic zirconia, which owes its existence to humanity (it was people who created it), and without humanity this stone would never have existed. And this is only a very small part of what only a few people know about gemstones.

Therefore, it seems to us, this unique encyclopedia of gemstones will always be in demand. Moreover, we tried to talk about gemstones in a very simple way, avoiding complex technical details that are necessary only for professionals.

We have included in the encyclopedia not only the most valuable gems, but also those stones that are commonly called semi-precious. And here we were guided by the fact that a lot of jewelry with such stones is now sold in jewelry stores, and of course it is worth learning about them, especially since semi-precious stones are usually priced lower than precious stones, although, as already mentioned, sometimes their characteristics are not inferior to the latter.