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Birthstone for May -- Emerald

Jewelry Making Birthsone for May -- EmeraldThe birthstone for May is the emerald.  Emerald is a mineral made up of beryllium aluminum silicate with traces of chromium.  The traces of chromium provide the green color.  Aquamarine is also beryllium aluminum silicate but without the traces of chromium.  For this reason, Aquamarine and emerald are very similar chemically.

Mined emeralds almost always include inclusions.  The presence of inclusions reduces the value of the emerald as a gemstone and make gem quality emeralds, with minimum inclusions, very rare.  Because high quality emeralds are very rare, the emerald is the most valuable gemstone by weight. 

The emerald has a hardness of 7.5 to 8.0.  The same inclusions mentioned above also make emeralds more susceptible to fracture and because of the combination of susceptibility to fracture and a lower hardness, emeralds are more susceptible to breakage than the other cardinal gemstones (diamond, ruby, sapphire, emerald and amethyst). 

Emeralds were mined in antiquity by the Egyptians, in Austria and in northern Pakistan.  Currently, most of the emeralds available now come from mines in Colombia although several other countries have active emerald mines. 

Because of the high value of emeralds, they were one of the first minerals to by synthesized in a laboratory.  There are at least two chemical processes that grow emerald crystals in laboratory settings.  These emeralds are often referred to as "created" emeralds.  Today there are four laboratories within Russia growing these created or synthetic emeralds. 

Like diamonds, famous emeralds are given names.  The Gachala Emerald is a 5cm emerald crystal weighing 858 carats (about .4 pounds).  This stone was found in Colombia in 1967 and was donated to the Smithsonian Institution by New York jewelry Harry Winston.  The Chalk Emerald originally weighed 38.40 carats and has been cut, faceted and set into a ring.  The ring was made by the Harry Winston, Inc. jewelers and was also donated to the Smithsonian Institution by Mr. and Mrs. O. Roy Chalk in 1972. 

For more information on emeralds visit Wikipedia here.

Please select here or select the picture above-right to view our selection of emerald colored cubic zirconia and emerald quartz gemstones. The advantage to emerald colored CZs over real emeralds is that the CZ won't have the inclusions present in mined emeralds, the CZs are harder, and the CZs are less susceptible to breakage.  The CZ also costs significantly less.  Emerald Quartz is the same hardness as real mined emeralds. 

  Birthstones                    View our Emerald Jewelry Making Kits

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Emerald"
Last updated 3/30/2007

This WigJig web page is provided as part of WigJig University - College of Jewelry Making Techniques.  We try to provide interesting jewelry making techniques using beads, jewelry wire and other jewelry supplies.  We hope that the jewelry making skills taught on these web pages will provide you enough information for you to incorporate these techniques in your own jewelry making projects.  For beginners, we suggest that you start with a visit to our Beginners Jewelry Making pages. These pages discuss the skills necessary for making jewelry in the detail that beginners need. We also suggest that beginners to jewelry making might need to visit the WigJig University College of Jewelry Making Designs for jewelry making projects using the skills and techniques shown here. 

 Most, but not all of the jewelry supplies shown here can be purchased in our WigJig store.  We try to have a complete selection of jewelry supplies in our store including chain, wire, glass beads, findings, watches, tools, etc. 

The jewelry making projects shown here do not use Sterling Silver.  The reason for this is simple, it is harder to get good pictures of Sterling Silver wire components than with colored wire including gold-filled, copper, or brass wire.  Any project shown in colored wire can be made in Sterling Silver wire.