Hi All, When I was young, I was fascinated with rocks and minerals. Here's a site that shows a lot of pictures of minerals and gemstones. http://www.minerals.net/ Enjoy.
A thing I would interest in minerals is - the order of precious. I played much Crash Bandicoot as I was young. There you can find some different minerals, 5 colors. I always wondering about the association of preciously in the way you can find them. Anyone know the order that maybe?
yep MJ really is very beatiful and expense too, if someday you came here go to Bahia state, Minas Gerais state, and several more states that have a lot of types of minerals and gems including diamonds, gold, silver etc
I also find minerals fascinating, even made a list of those used as gems with a few basic properties like color, hardness, brittleness, mineral family. This way, I’ve learned quite a lot about them for a non expert. I had got the data from Wiki, but the link given in the OP is also good. Did you know for example that Sapphire and Ruby are the same mineral (Corundum)? Its very hard, 9 on Mohs scale with Diamond at 10. When red, it’s called Ruby, any other color is Sapphire. So Sapphires are not always blue, though they are worth more when they are. The color is due to small amount of impurities. On Hotbird satellite TV, there’s an Italian channel selling jewelry that also describes the gemstone used in each jewel. I watch it regularly while having dinner, though of course I’d never buy anything. I highly recommend it to those who know Italian.
It’s not an easy subject, as value depends on many hard to judge parameters and only experts can determine it. Non-experts better stay away, or they could fall into very expensive traps in the hands of dodgy dealers. You won’t be cheated by the likes of Tiffany’s, Cartier or Bulgari, but you won’t get any bargains either, you’ll pay the full price plus the name. Basically, there are 4 precious stones: Diamond, Emerald, Sapphire and Ruby, some also add pearls and a couple of other nearly extinct minerals. All the rest are semi-precious, with values depending more on individual stone properties than mineral involved.