The Four Most Precious Gemstones People like valuable gemstones for various reasons. Some store wealth in gemstones and precious metals, some wear then to show off their wealth and their self-perceived status, some believe that wearing their birthstone will bring them health, wealth and happiness and others wear them because they look nice. Valuable gemstones have always been sought after because of their worth, but in older days, they were also prized for other things, such as being able to bestow good health. This belief persists among some peoples, but not a lot in the Developed World any more. In the Developed World, most people wear precious stones for their beauty and to display status. In the East, people also wear precious gems to display status, but collect them because they do not traditionally have faith in banks. And who could blame them in the light of the West's recent experience with their financial banking crisis and the meteoric rise in the cost of gold? There is almost certainly a lesson for us all here. Anyway, besides precious metals, there are precious stones and the most valuable of them are: emeralds, diamonds, rubies and sapphires. The order of the stones in value relies on the quality. Diamonds of ordinary quality are worth more than emeralds of regular quality, but high quality emeralds are worth more than high quality diamonds, because it is difficult to find emeralds without lots of faults, which are also known as 'inclusions'. Diamonds come in all kinds of colours from clear to 'black'. Clear diamonds are what most people want, but there are some very costly big coloured diamonds in yellow and blue. The problem with gemstones is that their supply is tightly regulated by cartels and governments, which keeps their cost unnaturally high. Diamonds are the worst of the bunch in this regard. De Beers controls a large proportion of the diamond market and was able to set prices for decades. The Argyle mine of Australia produces 7,000 kilos of brown diamonds, which were by tradition considered valueless for the purposes of jewelry. However, due to a talented advertising campaign, brown diamonds are now thought to be valuable in Australia, although clear diamonds are still preferred in the remainder of the world. Emeralds are a gorgeous green gemstone, but it is very difficult to purchase a good one. Lots of emeralds have been treated to look more valuable than they truly are, but this is a fact of diamonds as well. If you like red gems, then a ruby is for you. Ruby is a definition of the colour red and rubies can vary from blood red crimson to pink, but in general, the deeper the red the
better. However, not all red stones that are sold as rubies are rubies, but you could have guessed that Sapphire is usually a beautiful deep blue, but can also be pale blue to pink. Sapphires come usually from the East, like Thailand, Russia but even North Carolina in the USA. If you want to buy any of these top gemstones, purchase the best that you are able to afford, because you can pass them on to your children as heirlooms. Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a variety of subjects, and is now involved with Good Diamond Quality. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Jewellry and Watches.