Coconino Lapidary Club

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Precious Coral

Both precious red and black corals are bottom-dwelling sessile marine branched animals that have been harvested at depths between 60 and 20,000 feet [Ref 1, Ref 2]. They have provided […]

Art Deco Rubies

Art Deco is my favorite style of jewelry, with its flair of design and the use of unusual combinations of gemstones. Art Deco is a style of architecture and design […]

Ancient Rubies

In this continuation of blogs about the corundum gem varieties, sapphire and ruby, I will first describe the trade routes that first brought the gems, from their mines in the […]

Sapphire – Art Deco

Art Deco is my favorite style of jewelry with its flair of design and the use of unusual combinations of gemstones.  Art Deco is a style of architecture and design […]

Ancient Sapphires

In this blog I’m displaying examples of jewelry and art objects from ancient Asia and the Mughal Empire.  I also include examples of jewelry from the Roman Empire and the […]

Largest Star Sapphire/Ruby

We usually think of star sapphires and rubies as stones in the few carat range, not in hundreds and thousands of carats. But some are an amazing size. At the […]

Corundum – From Sapphires to Rubies

Gemstones of the mineral corundum [Ref 1] offer a rainbow of colors for the lapidarist and jewelry maker as displayed in Figure 1.  Traditionally, of these, the ruby and blue […]

Beryl Art Objects

In this blog beautiful art objects, carved and sculpted in crystals of the beryl gemstones, are presented. In some, the shape of the gemstone inspired the shape of the object. […]

THE MINERAL BERYL, A MULTIPLEX OF GEMS

The beautiful blue hues of aquamarine, the rich yellows of heliodor, the deep green of emerald, the subtle pinks of morganite, the deep blue of the maxixe beryl, and the […]