Gemstone Gallery

Gemstones have been at the foundation of our family-owned business for almost 40 years! We have one of the largest collections of colored gemstones in the Twin Cities, and we are here to help you find that perfect stone you're looking for! Browse our gallery below to see samples, and click on the pictures to learn more! And if you have any questions, be sure to let us know! We're here to help!

Diamond

Diamonds are the hardest natural material on the plantet and have been valued for generations as symbols of love and power. Named after the Greek word for "invincible," diamond has been described as "a girl's best friend." They have become a part of popular culture today. Who can forget listening to "Diamonds are Forever" while watching 007! Diamonds live at the heart of the most glamorous sector of the jewelry industry. Traditional diamonds are graded on the four C's - carat, color, clarity and cut. Whether they have a lab report or not, all diamonds are priced based on these same factorrs. For most diamonds, the absence of color or inclusions is desired, and the less of each, the higher the price. A few diamonds are valued for their natural colors - either because the color is very intense like vivid yellow or because it is very rare like pink or blue. Cuts range from the traditional round brilliant to square, oval and marquise shapes and even some oddities like half moons. Within each shape, a diamond can be more or less valuable depending on how much fire the facets create. We have both traditional diamonds and also fancy styles of diamonds such as moss slices and opaque rose cuts.

Blue Sapphire

Sapphire is among the most durable of gemstones with only diamond being harder to scratch. As with ruby, the legendary virtues ascribed to sapphire are many. Ancient Persians believed that the earth rested on a great blue sapphire, the reflection of which gave the sky its color. Also, sapphire was long considered a symbol of truth and constancy. Blue sapphire is the birthstone for September and is the gemstone recommended for forty-fifth anniversaries. Many of our sapphires are referred to as "Ceylon" sapphires. One of the first sources of blue sapphire, the tiny island of Ceylon is today known as Sri Lanka. Since their discovery, Ceylon sapphires have been known for their purity of color and brilliance. While Sri Lanka is still a major producer of sapphires, the term has now come to include all blue sapphire with those characteristics, regardless of source. Many "Ceylon" sapphires in the market today are from the larger island of Madagascar. Almost all sapphires of any color have been heat treated to lighten or intensify color, or to try and improve clarity. For the last twenty-some years, titanium diffusion has been practiced in some markets where titanium is diffused into the surface of clear sapphires turning the color blue. Since 2006, some sapphires have appeared in the market with Beryllium diffusion throughout to improve color.

Sapphire has a hardness of 9 making it an excellent choice for all types of jewelry including wedding rings.

Treatments: heat for color and clarity, diffusion for color.

Fancy Sapphire

Sapphire comes in many different colors, including green, pink, yellow, purple, orange and white. Most natural green sapphire is dark, olive-green in color and quite inexpensive although a few are bright and lively enough that they command premium prices. Traditionally, green sapphire has been produced in Thailand and Australia, but recent production has included many gems from East Africa.

Pink Sapphires have traditionally been found in the gem gravels of Sri Lanka, but recently a major find of intense color stones has been discovered on the island of Madagascar. Colors range from light pink to fuchsia. If the color intensity approaches red, the gem is a ruby, or if the pink color is mixed with orange, the term "padparadsha" is used.

Almost all sapphires of any color have been heat treated to lighten or intensify color, or to try and improve clarity. Since 2001 most pink, yellow and orange sapphire has been diffused with Beryllium to improve color. This treatment is impossible to detect without very specialized lab equipment. Recently, fracture filled stones have also appeared in the market.

Sapphire with a hardness of 9 is among the most durable of gemstones with only diamond being harder to scratch.

Treatments: Heat for color and clarity, diffusion for color, fracture filling for clarity enhancement.

Ruby

Rubies have been sought after since ancient times because of their lively red color. Almost all rubies have been heat treated to lighten or intensify color, or to try and improve clarity. Since about 2001 many African rubies have been treated with Beryllium diffusion to improve color. This treatment is not effective with Burmese rubies, so at this time it can be assumed that rubies with inclusions indicating Burmese origin are not treated with Beryllium. About 2006 the market was flooded with African rubies which were glass-filled to varying degrees. Some of these contained so much glass that they were essentially composite stones. As with diamonds, glass filled rubies need to be identified so bench jewelers can handle them with more care. More recently, there has been a good supply of rubies from Africa that are an excellent red color with no treatments - not even heat treating! This is a very encouraging development, especially with the relative scarcity of Burmese rubies, and the ban on their importation to the US.

Treatments: Heat treating is almost universal, Beryllium diffusion in African rubies, and fracture filling.

Emerald

Emerald's rich green color is so striking that almost everyone is entranced by it. The history surrounding these green rocks is a tangled web of legend, superstition, and corruption. Ancient emeralds came mostly from Egypt, and were of poor quality. The modern emerald bounty began almost five centuries ago when Spanish explorers arrived in the New World. Montezuma presented Cortes with a staggering emerald crystal much larger and finer than any ever seen before. The Spaniards spent years searching for the source of the fantastic green gems. They found it finally in what is today Colombia. Today, emeralds are produced in Colombia, Brazil, Zambia and Pakistan. Almost all emeralds have been treated with oils or resins to minimize the optical effect of surface reaching flaws. They have a hardness of 7, but are usually fragile due to the large number of inclusions present. Best suited to earrings, pendants and "special-occasion" rings.

Treatments: Fracture filling of some type is almost universal, typically clear oils, but sometimes epoxy resins.

Tanzanite

Tanzanite is a relatively recent addition to the gem world. It was originally marketed as a sapphire substitute, but people fell in love with the gem and it gained a life all it's own. Today, value is based not on how blue or purple the color is, but how intense it's color is. Tanzanite is produced only in Tanzania, and usually comes out of the ground brown. Heat treatment changes the brown to blue, but can not add color intensity to the stone that is not already present. The price of tanzanite has fluctuated wildly over the last decade, but since most tanzanite is now under the marketing arm of the Tanzanite Foundation, pricing has stabilized. The hardness of tanzanite is 7, making it suitable for most jewelry other than everyday rings.

Treatments: Heating to change color.

Opal

Lightning flashes of color captured in stone! That can only describe precious opal, and 95% of precious opal mined today is found in the arid desert outback of Australia. Our story begins eons ago when a large inland sea stretched from the North of Australia down roughly two-thirds of the way across the continent. As the sea slowly receded, layers of sand and clay sediment were deposited until today the water is gone. As a result, the top one hundred feet or so below ground level consists of layers of shale, limestone and sandstone. Opals were formed when silica-rich water from weathered upper sediments trickled through the lower layers. A long, steady rate of deposition and evaporation results in the conditions necessary to form the consistent microscopic spheres needed for flashes of spectral color. Opals contain a significant percentage of water when mined and surface cracks referred to as crazing can be a problem that develops over time. We try to “season” rough, or let it sit for a few months to detect crazing prior to cutting. Since opals are relatively fragile it is best to wear them as pendants, earrings or special-occasion rings. Try to avoid extreme arid conditions and rapid changes in temperature.

Treatments: Assembled stones.

Pearl

Tahiti - the name alone evokes images of sun-drenched beaches and turquoise waters - a paradise we in Minnesota yearn to escape to come January! These tropical islands are home to one of nature’s magnificent creations - the black pearl. This jewel of the sea has a reputation for exceptional value and rarity, enhanced by its use in jewelry of the world’s royalty and nobility. It has even been nicknamed the “Queen of Pearls." Tahitian pearls are not dyed, yet the color ranges from white to silver-gray to brown to black with the nacre providing overtones of green, purple, red and blue. An unusual phenomenon that is more prevalent in Tahitian pearls than other varieties is the circle or ringed pearl. These pearls have grooves running symmetrically all the way around, perpendicular to the long axis. No one knows for sure what causes the grooves, but consumers love them for their natural look and bargain pricing!

South Seas pearls are graded for color, luster, shape and surface quality. Color ranges from white to golden with the extremes usually being the most expensive. Luster is related to transparency of the nacre with less expensive pearls appearing more chalky. All South Seas pearls are nucleated with a sphere made out of clam shell, but the harvested pearls come in a variety of shapes from spherical to baroque. The more round the pearl is, the higher the value. Surface quality varies from totally smooth to pearls that have small pits or bumps in the surface. While all of these characteristics affect the price of a pearl, the beauty of a pearl is in the eye of the beholder.

Alexandrite

When gem connoisseurs speak of rarity, often the first example given is the rare form of chrysoberyl known as alexandrite. All alexandrite changes color under different light sources, but the best gems change from teal-green in daylight to raspberry or purplish-red in incandescent light. Legend has it that in 1830 a local Russian peasant was walking along the bank of the Tokovaya River at the base of the Ural Mountains when he stumbled across some green stones. The area already had several other mines and the local town of Ekaterinburg had developed into a center of lapidary and gem trade. The green stones turned out to be emeralds and mining began in earnest. Tokovaya’s mica schists produced a variety of gem rough and eventually it was discovered that one type had the strange ability to change color from red to green at different times of day! The unusual gem was named for Czarevitch Alexander Nicolajevitch and was immediately popular, helped along no doubt by its color’s resemblance to those of the Russian national military. The actual amount of color change varies from stone to stone and has a major impact on the stone's value. Alexandrite, the birthstone for June, is an untreated, natural gemstone. It has a hardness of 8.5 which makes it a good choice for all types of jewelry.

Treatments: none (many synthetics however)

Spinel

Spinles seem to attract confusion! In history they have often been confused with rubies and sapphires, in fact the Black Prince's Ruby adorning the Imperial State Crown of England is actually a fine red spinel. In more recent times, spinel was one of the first gems successfully grown in a laboratory so it is used for many of the synthetic birthstone colors. In spite of all this, natural Spinel is still being mined and is gaining more recognition among gem and jewelry buyers.

With its hardness of 8 and its wide range of available colors, natural spinel makes a great choice for all types of jewelry including rings.

Treatments: Occasional heating

Tourmaline

Tourmaline is one of the most common of the pegmatite minerals, and is found throughout the world including (but not limited to) Maine, Brazil, Afghanistan and Namibia. Almost every color of tourmaline can be found in Brazil, which supplied the majority of the world’s tourmaline in the last half of the twentieth century. Small towns in the state of Minas Gerais survived on the gem trade with many local miners called garimpeiros doing small scale mining and small shops set up to perform gem cutting. In 1989 miners in the Brazilian state of Bahia discovered a new variety of tourmaline colored by copper. This new variety came in neon bright colors of blue and green and became known as Paraiba Tourmaline. As the gem trade explodes in Africa, production of tourmaline there is no exception. Finds of note include pink tourmaline from Nigeria, Paraiba- like tourmaline from Nigeria and Mozambique, bright green Chrome Tourmaline from Tanzania, golden Savannah Tourmaline from Kenya, and yellow Canary Tourmaline from Malawi. Tourmaline’s hardness (7-7.5) and color variety make it a favorite for jewelry.

Treatments: irradiation or heating of some rubellite to intensify color.

Topaz

Precious Topaz refers to yellow to red colors of this gemstone. Any topaz containing a hint of red is referred to as 'imperial' topaz, most of which comes from the historic gold mining town of Ouro Preto in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Some topaz is heated to remove the yellow component of the color, leaving only the pink tone. Larger stones tend to be long and narrow because fractures in the rough commonly run lengthwise down the crystal.

Blue Topaz has become a standard of the jewelry industry along with garnet, citrine and amethyst. Since scientists discovered that irradiation would turn clear topaz into vibrant shades of blue, the supply has been able to keep up with demand and prices have been very affordable. There is a natural counterpart to blue topaz, but it is rarely seen anymore, since the colors pale when displayed next to their irradiated cousins. Recently, new processes have been used to coat clear topaz with other colors creating a whole new set of affordable gems. These newer processes are merely a surface coating, whereas the blue color is throughout the stone.

Topaz has a hardness of 8 making it superb for all types of jewelry.

Treatments: Irradiation to create blue color. Diffusion and coating to create assorted colors. Heating to remove yellow.

Aquamarine

Aquamarine (derived from the Latin words for water and sea) is the blue to blue-green variety of beryl created when iron intrudes into channels formed in the molecular structure. Legend has it that wearing aquamarine ensures a long and happy marriage. Since treatment of this gem does not intensify or add color, dark colored aquamarine is very rare, and not often available. These gems are found in many parts of the world, but the majority of commercial production occurs in Brazil and East Africa. The Santa Maria mine in Brazil has historically been one of the most significant sources of fine quality aquamarine. This mine, located near Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais is an extensive commercial beryllium mine that also contains gem quality crystals. While not currently in production, thousands of kilos of high-grade aquamarine have been produced from this mine alone.

Aquamarine has a hardness of 7 which makes it suitable for most jewelry.

Treatments: Heating at low temperatures removes the yellow component of color, leaving the stone icy blue.

Blue Zircon

Natural zircon today suffers on account of the similarity of its name to cubic zirconia, the laboratory-grown diamond imitation. Many people are unaware that there is a beautiful natural gemstone called zircon.
Zircon occurs in a wide range of colors, but for many years the most popular was the colorless variety, which looks more like diamond than any other natural stone because of its brilliance and dispersion. Today the most popular color is blue zircon, which is considered an alternative birthstone for December. Most blue zircon is a pastel blue, but some exceptional gems have a bright blue color. The blue color occurs when heating brownish colored zircons from certain locations.
Zircon is mined in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Australia, and other countries. Cambodia is arguably the world’s premiere source for gorgeous zircon. Sixty-three miles north of Angkor Wat, close to the Cambodian-Thai border, lay the mines of Preah Vihear, the source of some of the world’s finest blue zircon. Remote, primitive and stunningly beautiful, Ratanakiri is another major center for Cambodian Zircon. Ratanakiri literally means “Gemstone Mountain”.

Treatments: All blue zircon has been heat-treated. There are natural colors of zircon though, such as green and yellow.

Rhodolite Garnet

Rhodolite garnet actually refers to a color of garnet rather than a specific chemical composition. Garnets which exhibit a purplish-pink color without the normal tones of brown and orange are given the name rhodolite. Traditionally, these gems hailed from India, however today they are found in several localities. They are 7 in hardness making them suitable for most jewelry applications.

Treatments: none

Tsavorite Garnet

Tsavorite is an intense green grossular garnet originally discovered by Campbell Bridges in 1961. According to Bridges, he was making his way up a steep gully in Zimbabwe when an old rogue buffalo charged out of the bush. He jumped into the gully to escape and made his way along it avoiding the buffalo. When he was finally neared the top of the hill, he was faced with a scattering of bright green crystals. Larger deposits were discovered several years later in Tanzania and Kenya near Tsavo National Park. When first introduced to Tsavorite, Harry Platt, former President of Tiffany & Company was asked to comment on it as a gemstone, He said, “Tsavorite is everything that a fine gemstone should be, and then some.” It is one of the few gemstones that can work as a possible substitute for emerald. Tsavorite is also a very brilliant stone due to its high refractive index, so it looks good set with diamonds. In addition tsavorite, like all garnets is still untreated in any way. Garnets are about 7.5 on the Moh’s scale in hardness and their crystal structure makes them particularly robust so they are suitable for everyday wear.

Spessartite Garnet

Garnet is actually the name given to a group of related silicate minerals. When calcium is part of the mineral, the collective term ugrandites is used. This includes the uvarovite, grossular and andradite garnets. Grossular garnets are best known for the bright green variety from East Africa called tsavorite. The remainder of gem garnets contain aluminum and are referred to as pyralspites. These include pyrope, almandine, which is the dark red variety most commonly seen in jewelry, and spessartite garnets. In addition to aluminum, spessartite garnet contains manganese. It is this addition of manganese that gives spessartite its fantastic orange color. As iron is substituted for part of the manganese the garnet becomes a mixture of spessartite and almandine, and more brown and red is introduced. In the international market, the brighter orange color with minimal red is preferred, but in the US people seem to prefer the more fiery orange color with some red in the mix. Since garnet does not have cleavage and is 7-7.5 in hardness, it makes a durable gemstone for all types of jewelry including rings.

Treatments: none

Demantoid Garnet

Demantoid garnets from Russia are known for extremely high dispersion or spectral colors of light. For many years, the only demantoid garnets available were gems taken from estate jewelry. Lately however, these beautiful garnets are again available in limited quantities from Russia, and also from new mines in Africa. These very rare gems are totally natural and untreated. Their hardness of 7 makes them suitable for most jewelry.

Jade

The gemstone jade actually encompasses to different minerals - jadeite and nephrite. Both are extremely tough and both come in a variety of colors. A large volume of dark green nephrite is found in British Columbia. From there it is shipped over to China for cutting and then enters the world market.

Jadeite is often used for fine carvings because of it's toughness. 'A' Jade refers to jade that is untreated except for a light wax coating applied after the final polish. Although often purchased in Hong Kong or China, top quality jadeite always originates in Burma.

Black jade from Wyoming is sometimes used to replace black onyx in rings where breakage has been an issue.

Treatments: Usually waxed, often dyed.

Amethyst

Amethyst is a member of the quartz family of gemstones, which also includes yellow citrine, green prasiolite, smoky quartz, rose quartz and rock crystal. All of these gems are crystals of silicon dioxide and are only separated by color. When the crystals are microscopic in size, a whole different set of gemstone can be added. Microcrystalline quartzes include chalcedony, jasper, agate, bloodstone, tigereye and black onyx.

Amethyst has been known and used for adornment since ancient times. While the most well known myths revolve around cures for intoxication, amethyst was also used to protect against snakebite, quell excessive stomach acid, beautify the skin, and even combat insect bites. In Greek mythology, a young nymph named Amethystos was being pursued by Dionysis. In her distress, she called out to Artemis for help. Apparently the obvious solution back then was to turn her into stone. When Dionysis saw what happened, he felt remorse and his tears turned the statue purple.

Quartz is seven in hardness so amethyst is a fairly durable stone and can be used in all types of jewelry. With its rich, distinctive color and affordable price, amethyst makes a great addition to any wardrobe.

Gemstone Gallery

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