Emeralds are a green gemstone formed deep in the Earth’s crust. At least twenty times more rare than diamonds, and dating back to 2.97 billion years, emeralds have been treasured as adornments in the form of jewelry for centuries.
As one of the most popular of the precious gemstones – rivaling diamonds, rubies and sapphires- emeralds are the celebrated gemstone and historically thought to guard against memory loss and enhance intuition.
The most important factors that determine the emerald’s value is its color and place of origin. They are further quite expensive to set into jewelry as they are very susceptible to chipping! Emeralds are often enhanced with oil to make them a bright vivid green.
Emeralds are graded on a similar scale to diamonds with the 4 Cs- Color, Clarity (or transparency for emeralds), Cut and Carat weight, however color is the most important determining factor of an emeralds value and is evaluated in three categories. Graded on hue, tonal grade and saturation, and rated from Very Light to Very Dark.
Today we enjoy emeralds as the birthstone for May and the astrological affiliation with Cancer, as well as the gemstone of choice for the 20th, 35th and 55th wedding anniversary.