diamond, Hope Diamond, famous diamonds, gems

Evalyn Walsh McLean’s Father Struck It Rich, written in collaboration with journalist Boyden Sparkes, is an autobiographical account of the life of the celebrated American heiress and owner of the Hope diamond, tracing her family’s rise from modest circumstances in the Colorado mining camps to extraordinary wealth and prominence in Washington society. The narrative begins with her father, Thomas F. Walsh, an Irish immigrant who arrived in America in 1869 and spent decades prospecting and developing mining properties in the American West. His discovery of an exceptionally rich gold deposit at the Camp Bird mine near Ouray, Colorado, in 1896 transformed the family’s fortunes. McLean provides detailed recollections of her father’s prospecting methods, his recognition of gold-bearing quartz overlooked by earlier miners, and the development of the mine into a major producer. The Camp Bird was eventually sold to British investors in 1902 for a total consideration of $5.2 million. The resulting wealth enabled the Walsh family to establish themselves among the social elite of Washington, New York, Newport, and Europe. Evalyn recounts her privileged but unconventional upbringing, her acquaintance with royalty and political leaders, and her marriage to Edward Beale McLean, heir to the Washington Post newspaper fortune. Of particular gemological and historical importance are her firsthand accounts of acquiring two of the world’s most celebrated diamonds. During her honeymoon in Paris, she purchased the 92-carat pear-shaped Star of the East diamond from Cartier as part of an elaborate necklace incorporating a large emerald and pearl. Later, Pierre Cartier introduced her to the famous blue Hope diamond, recounting its supposed history from Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and Louis XIV through its disappearance during the French Revolution and subsequent ownership by the Hope family. McLean describes the diamond’s unusual blue color, comparing it with various shades of blue and with sapphire, and records the legends of misfortune associated with its ownership. Initially reluctant to purchase the stone because she disliked its setting, she became captivated after Cartier had it remounted in a diamond necklace. The agreed price was $154,000, and the transaction was subsequently complicated by financial arrangements and litigation. Although McLean professes skepticism about the diamond’s alleged curse, she admits to a lingering superstition, refusing to allow friends or children to touch it while regarding herself as somehow immune to its supposed influence. Her account provides an unusually intimate perspective on the marketing, valuation, ownership, and social significance of exceptional gemstones during the early twentieth century. Beyond jewelry, the autobiography chronicles the tragedies that accompanied the family’s wealth, including the death of her brother in an automobile accident, the death of her young son, her husband’s alcoholism and financial difficulties, and the erosion of the family fortune during the Great Depression. McLean also describes her charitable activities, relationships with prominent political figures, and attempts to balance extravagance with personal responsibility. Illustrated with family portraits, photographs of the Camp Bird mine, and images of her celebrated jewels, the book is an important primary source for the history of the Hope diamond and the Star of the East, as well as for the social history of American mining fortunes and the luxury jewelry trade. Its central theme is the contrast between wealth earned through determination and labor and wealth inherited without the discipline that its acquisition requires.

corundum, history.1, France.12, gems, appraisal, valuation, gem prices, early gemology, medieval lapidaries

Byrne investigates the variety, circulation and relative economic value of medieval gemstones through thirteenth-century Genoese notarial records, supplementing and qualifying conclusions drawn from royal inventories. He begins by explaining why commercial documents rarely permit precise valuations: stones are commonly recorded without weights, dimensions or reliable descriptions of quality, while prices often cover mixed consignments, settings and other goods together. Nevertheless, the records demonstrate an active Mediterranean trade in loose gems and jewellery, with pearls particularly prominent and a range of precious and ornamental materials appearing in exports, sales, pledges and personal possessions. The article’s principal evidence is a detailed Genoese contract of 1253 involving Joseph de Braudistano, acting for King Conrad of Sicily, and a substantial collection of jewels valued at £2,522 Genoese. Byrne questions whether this represented an outright purchase or, more probably, a financing arrangement secured upon royal treasure during the Hohenstaufen dynasty’s financial difficulties. The document lists 987 objects, including 100 rings, 94 mounted ornaments, 783 loose stones and ten devotional or household articles. Its contents include Oriental and European sapphires, rubies, topazes, emeralds, diamonds, pearls and numerous engraved stones, with cameos and intaglios accounting for 681 items. Byrne emphasises the distinction between valuable Oriental sapphires and the less costly stones from Le Puy, and notes that the collection’s contents broadly support established views of medieval gemstone preferences and rarity. The exceptional number of engraved gems suggests either extensive survival and circulation of antique material or an important contribution from Byzantine or medieval workmanship; their exact origins remain uncertain. To make the collection’s aggregate value intelligible without relying on misleading conversions into modern currency, Byrne compares it with contemporary salaries, wages, commodities, livestock, enslaved people and property. The sum represented approximately the annual earnings of 150 skilled craftsmen and could have purchased a major provisioned ship, large quantities of silk, cotton, wool or grain, or substantial urban and rural property. These comparisons establish the collection’s considerable purchasing power while preserving uncertainty about individual gem values. Byrne concludes that the jewels were probably dispersed as Hohenstaufen fortunes collapsed, with some of the engraved stones potentially surviving, unidentified, in later collections.

jade, jadeite, fei cui, nephrite, Burma, China, gems

This article surveys jade’s physical characteristics, sources, cultural associations, manufacture, valuation, and ornamental uses, while promoting it as a suitable Mother’s Day gift. It distinguishes nephrite from fei cui, describing nephrite as a compact aggregate of minute fibrous amphibole crystals whose exceptional toughness exceeds that of the more granular fei cui. Fei cui is presented as harder, heavier, and more refractive than nephrite, while dark green to black material termed chloromelanite is associated with increased iron content. The principal source of fei cui is identified as the Mogaung district of Upper Burma, whereas nephrite is reported from the Karakash Valley in Turkestan, China, Siberia, New Zealand, and other localities. Guangzhou and Beijing are described as important trading and carving centers, although the author cautions that the finest pieces seldom appear openly in tourist shops and that inexperienced visitors may pay excessive prices. Historical discussion connects the names jade and nephrite with beliefs concerning their ability to remedy kidney or loin disorders, and recounts the esteem accorded jade by the Aztecs, Māori, and other peoples who fashioned it into tools and weapons. Particular attention is given to Chinese traditions, including jade’s association with charity, modesty, courage, justice, wisdom, constancy, happiness, and longevity. The article also describes its use in musical instruments and burial customs, together with collectors’ appreciation of rust-colored archaeological pieces, whose appearance was sometimes imitated artificially. Traditional manufacture involves sawing with wire and an abrasive, usually powdered corundum, followed by hand carving and polishing. Carved motifs are assigned symbolic meanings, including the bat for happiness and the butterfly for immortality. The color discussion encompasses numerous greens, white, yellow, brown, lavender, and bluish lavender. The author contrasts Chinese appreciation of “mutton-fat” white material with American preference for emerald-green fei cui, and questions reports of genuinely blood-red jade. Dark inclusions and uneven coloration are said to diminish value, although skilled carvers incorporate contrasting areas into their designs. Fine, flawless, uniformly colored material fashioned as a simple cabochon is considered more valuable than pierced carving. Uses include earrings, brooches, rings, snuff bottles, vases, bowls, belt buckles, and dress clasps. The concluding passages encourage collecting and repeated gifts of jade, emphasizing its durability, varied appearance, cultural significance, and availability across a broad range of prices.

corundum, inclusions.5, Afghanistan.12, Jegdalek, Tajikistan.12, gems, lapis lazuli, spinel

Describes lapis lazuli, spinel, and ruby occurrences in the crystalline limestones and marbles associated with Afghanistan’s extensive metamorphic formations. The Badakhshan lapis lazuli deposit lies in the upper Kokcha valley, about ten kilometres downstream from Robat, where mineralization locally replaces the enclosing marble. Barthoux records three commercial colour varieties and describes extraction by heating selected portions of the rock with fires, followed by ventilation and removal of the loosened blocks. Lazurite crystals reaching 15 mm occur in the surrounding white marble, accompanied by phlogopite, humite, forsterite, and pyrite; crystallographic details are provided for several minerals. Historical balas rubies from Gharan, near Siz on the right bank of the Oxus, are described as large, slightly cloudy, violet-pink spinel octahedra, distinguished from almandine obtained across the river. At Jagdalak, between Kabul and Jalalabad, steeply inclined marbles contain abundant spinels of various colours together with pink corundum. The paper describes the crystal forms of the corundum and associated minerals, including humite, chondrodite, phlogopite, fuchsite, rutile, titanite, hematite, pyrite, and diopside. Emerald-green pargasite occurs as isolated crystals or aggregates with phlogopite, and a chemical analysis is reported for comparison with edenite.

gems, ruby, synthetic ruby, treatments.6, chromium, corundum, sapphire, fluorescence, absorption spectrum, ultraviolet light, emerald, beryl

The ruby is a mineral composed of aluminum oxide with traces of chromium oxide which gives it its color. The pigment is very probably in molecular solution. As aluminum oxide has a strong crystalline urge, the ruby is quite easily obtained synthetically by just fusing its components in an oxygen-hydrogen flame. The product thus obtained differs but little from the natural ruby, as far as chemical and physical properties are concerned. Its color is produced in distinct zones which are curved instead of being straight as is the case with real rubies. While the real material contains inclusions which are peculiar to certain proveniences, the synthetic stone is rather clean except that it contains gas bubbles which render it at times unfit for technical uses as for jewels, etc. Both, the real and synthetic rubies, exhibit the same properties when heated to high temperatures. They turn a dull deep red and cool, via a greenish state (near 600 degrees C.). The color, after heating, is identical to the original color. The pigment is, therefore, very closely attached to the molecule and is probably isomorphously mixed. There exists only one analysis showing a trace of chromium but recent spectroscopic investigations have revealed that all pink corundums contain some chromium, i. e., the rose Montana sapphire, the pink Ceylon sapphire, and the blue Ceylon stone with a purple tinge (this variety loses its blue color when heated and the result is a rose sapphire the color of which is stable). Ruby fluoresces when exposed to ultra violet light of an iron arc or of a mercury vapor lamp. The color which it emits is of a deep red and this red light is excited by the invisible ultra violet rays as well as by green light. The same fluorescence can be observed with emeralds which also owe their green color to an addition of chromium, but here, to the silicate molecule. A plate of ruby placed between a source of white light and a spectroscope which allows the white light to be fanned into a band showing the spectrum colors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet, shows that some of the light rays are absorbed by the ruby molecule. Thus all violet rays and part of the green rays are held back or filtered off. Besides, certain distinct wavelengths are absorbed and closer investigation shows that some red light waves are filtered off. There are two sharp absorption lines in the red part of the spectrum and these coincide with the red lines emitted under the influence of ultra violet light. The emission and absorption lines are identical. This is of high scientific importance. Emerald shows the same phenomenon. Besides visible light, the ruby also filters off some of the ultra violet invisible rays emitted by a carbon arc containing iron or nickel. Recent investigations along these lines have revealed that the transparency of the synthetic material is greater than that of the real stone. The higher absorption of the latter is probably due to a certain iron content which tends to absorb ultra violet light as is shown by glass which invariably contains iron and is more or less opaque for ultra violet light. Expressed in terms of spectrum measurement the absorption of the synthetic ruby begins at a region near 2700 Angstrom Units while that of the real ruby begins near 3200. A spectrum taken with a plate of ordinary glass would be still shorter than that of the real ruby; glass absorbs even more ultra violet rays. The spectrum would end somewhere near the heavy line bordering the absorption regions of the synthetic ruby spectrum. It would, however, let those violet rays pass which we find filtered off by the rubies so that we would find a continuous band from the red end down to the point indicated.

gems, jade, jadeite, fei cui, turquoise, France

Forde examines the unusually rich occurrence of greenstone axes and green beads in the megalithic tombs of Brittany, particularly southern Morbihan, and considers their mineralogy, geological sources, archaeological associations, and relationship to the wider megalithic cultures of western Europe. He distinguishes large, finely polished, often point-butted “ceremonial” axes of jadeite, chloromelanite, diorite, and related rocks from the smaller fibrolite axes used more generally, noting that the former frequently show no evidence of practical use and occur prominently in such important tombs as Mané-er-Hroëk, St. Michel, and Tumiac. Reviewing earlier mineralogical analyses, he stresses that objects loosely described as “jadeite” comprise several different materials; genuine jadeite and chloromelanite occur, occasional nephrite axes have been reported, and other specimens are pyroxenites or related rocks. Forde rejects the assumption that their green color necessarily indicates exotic material and argues from the geology of Brittany—including abundant pyroxenites and metamorphic rocks capable of producing jadeite-, actinolite-, and nephrite-bearing differentiates—that the greenstone used for the Breton axes was probably local. He separately examines “callais,” the apple- to emerald-green, sometimes translucent material extensively employed for beads and pendants. Earlier analyses had shown callais to be a hydrous aluminum phosphate related chemically to turquoise but differing in appearance and proportions, its green color being attributed to iron rather than copper. More than 500 callais objects were known from Brittany, while particularly large numbers also occurred in Portugal and smaller quantities elsewhere in France and Iberia. Its geological source remained uncertain, and Forde considers both a Breton source with export southward and an Iberian origin with introduction into Brittany plausible. He interprets the shared occurrence of callais, greenstone axes, bell beakers, and other elements as evidence for close cultural connections between Brittany and Iberia within the western European megalithic tradition, while emphasizing that the Breton ceremonial axes represent a distinctive local development of exceptional craftsmanship. Sinkankas: Describes axes and other objects made from a variety of stones which in some cases are jadeite but in others are some kind of fine-grained greenish rock; callais, however, may be turquoise.

gems, jade, jadeite, fei cui, Mesoamerica, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Mayans, Olmecs, Aztecs, archaeology, history, archaeogemology, Pre-Columbian jade; Costa Rica; Maya; exchange; iconography, lapidary, turquoise, masks

Gems and semi-precious stones of rich colours or delicate translucency have always appealed to the aesthetic sense of humanity; their use is one of the cultural threads that links the stockbroker with the shepherd, the Parisian with the Persian, Queen Wilhelmina with Queen Shub-ad. Few lands possess precious or beautiful stones that are not used by their inhabitants for personal adornment. The prehistoric peoples of the Americas made full use of the wealth of gemstones that nature provided. In addition to metals such as gold, silver, platinum, and copper, pearls, emeralds, opals, jadeite and nephrite, turquoise, lapis lazuli, amethyst, agate, quartzite and rock crystal, beryl, carnelian, chalcedony, jasper, pyrite, chloromelanite, amazonite, catlinite, obsidian, amber, shell, slate, and virtually every other gem material and ornamental stone found in the Americas—except the diamond—were used and worn by the ancient inhabitants and, in some cases, continue to be used by Indigenous peoples today.

corundum, ruby, sapphire, history.1, Sri Lanka.12, gems, Indian lapidary

Examines the development, routes, commodities, and economic consequences of trade between the Roman Empire and India, drawing on classical literature, geographical accounts, coins, and surviving objects. Warmington traces maritime connections through Egypt and the Red Sea alongside overland routes through western Asia, emphasizing the importance of monsoon navigation and intermediary merchants. The historical survey considers the expansion of commerce during the early Empire and its subsequent decline. Detailed commodity studies cover animals and animal products, textiles, spices, aromatic substances, and minerals, followed by Roman exports and the movement of gold and silver eastward. Gemstones receive extensive treatment, with attempts to identify ancient names through descriptions, known sources, and specimens preserved in collections. Discussions include agate, carnelian, onyx, jasper, opal, ruby, sapphire, beryl, emerald, garnet, chrysoberyl, zircon, and other ornamental materials, together with their uses in jewellery, engraved gems, vessels, and stoneworking. Particular attention is given to India and Ceylon as sources or distribution centres and to the difficulty of distinguishing mineral origins from the places through which stones were traded. The concluding economic analysis assesses Roman demand for eastern luxuries and the alleged adverse balance of trade. The second edition adds an appendix reviewing later discoveries and scholarship.

gems, jade, archaic jade, China, Chinese jade carving, nephrite, jadeite, fei cui

Surveys the physical and chemical properties of jade for collectors, relating its exceptional toughness, beauty, and durability to its longstanding importance in China and its prehistoric use for tools, weapons, and ornaments. Chait distinguishes nephrite from fei cui and identifies chloromelanite as an iron-rich, dark variety of fei cui. He compares their hardness, structure, translucency, polish, coloration, and chemical composition, describing nephrite as a calcium-magnesium silicate and jadeite as a sodium-aluminium silicate. Particular attention is given to the distinction between hardness and toughness: nephrite is softer than fei cui but is described as tougher because of its more fibrous structure. Differences in behaviour under the blowpipe and resistance to hydrochloric acid are also outlined. The discussion reviews the names jade and nephrite in connection with historical beliefs that the material could treat kidney ailments, while cautioning against fanciful accounts of its magical properties. White and green varieties are discussed, with emerald-green jade especially prized for its beauty and rarity. Chait emphasizes that reliable identification may require examination of several properties and microscopic study of thin sections. He concludes by directing readers to the Metropolitan Museum’s handbook on the Heber R. Bishop collection, Berthold Laufer’s research, and the Brooklyn Museum’s jade collection.

gems, beryl, emerald

A series of descriptive, promotional booklets published in New York, probably at the expense of J. R. Wood, eminent jewelers at the time. The copyrights, dated either 1923 or 1924, are “By Justin Wood,” without further information. All are quite uniform as follows. Center-stapled: charcoal gray or pale brown thick paper wrap (overlapping text), 15.3 × 11.2 cm (6 × 4⅜ in). Cut-out glossy col. pl. of carved or cut gems, loose or in mountings, 4.3 × 4.5 cm (1¾ × 1¾ in), pasted within a black frame on cover, with title of gemstone(s) below. Pale tan, charcoal-type text paper; om. init., om. numbers; oval colophon last p. (but not always). Text paper size 14.6 × 10.7 cm (5¾ × 4 3/16 in). Cut. Commonly printed on first page with name of jewelry firm to which pamphlet sold in quantity.