Aquamarine, the Blue variety of Beryl family, Birthstone for MARCH BORN BABIES.
Color of life and dreams sky mined on earth, and a whole beauty of blue eternity. Ancients called it the water color gemstone a crystalized water crystal, a beauty that nature produced ages and ages ago.
BRAZIL, COUNTRY OF AQUAMARINE
Until very recently, almost up to the late 1980’s, Aquamarine was a gem mined in Brazil, commonly cut in 3 to 10ct sizes, but mostly pale to light sky blue color, large deep blue color was more of an exception in Brazilian Aquamarine, confusion between Aqua and Brazil’s famous product the affordable Key Blue Topaz, to cause a problem in the trade. Many jewelers bought blue Topaz as Aquamarine for the simple reason that they did not know how to distinguish between both Gems, they passed it to consumer in good faith which created this mistrust problem between both gems.
If you are not an expert and want to make sure that what you are buying is an Aqua, not a blue Topaz, these are the steps that you take to protect your money:
1. Aquamarine always contain a greenish to green overtone even though in the best and finest Aqua color. You must observe this beautiful obvious greenish blue luster, sky blue topaz will never exhibit this greenish tone.
2. The Beryl crystal is very unique and unlike the Topaz crystal which is usually flawless white Topaz irradiated to sky blue color, the beryl crystal usually shows under magnifications or 60 power microscope straight grown lines or what maybe called sometimes rain drop like inclusions. That never occurs in Topaz crystals.
3. If you do not have a refractometer to test the refractive index of the gem, use an Aqua filter that you can always buy from any tools and jewelry supply store. By looking at the gem through the glass filter, if you see green, you can be sure that what you are looking at is an Aquamarine. Blue will usually indicate Topaz.
The good new is even if you are looking through this filter at an irradiated white Beryl, you will still see blue which indicate(not natural Aquamarine).
BLUE BERYL AQUAMARINE
Blue Beryl technically is an Aquamarine, however the trade used this name as a misnomer, a blue Beryl indicates a natural white Beryl turned to blue by both aquamarine and the treated blue Beryl will have the same (RI) refractive index, but this artificial color is always caught under the great Aqua filter. Also, if you buy a very deep blue color for a very little price, you must suspect it for treated blue Beryl. Fine color Aquamarine are scarce and they sell for high premium, no matter what deal you think you are getting.
AFRICAN AQUAMARINE
Aquamarines from Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Zambia were mined and introduced in the gem market in quality that broke all the rules in Aquamarine.
In fact African gems break all the rules in our industry these days.
Stones as small as one ct in size with the deepest color every seen were sold for the first time in the market. That pale color Brazilian Aquas were unable to compete with.
A TRADE OFF BETWEEN COLOR AND SIZE
While Brazil is well known for producing large crystals of Aquamarine, but never deep color in small sizes.
Africa produces the best Aqua color in its smallest size but hardly in large crystals. Which will be classified as museum grade if ever mined.
HEATING AQUAMARINE
Heating Aquamarine is a common practice in Brazil, used to permanently remove common green overtones from the stone but never deepen its color.
A practice which is not commonly used for most of the African Aquamarines, specifically the ones that are cut in India, where an advanced heat treatment is still remain unknown.
Aquamarine has been widely used in many of custom jewelry, specifically in contemporary design pendants and necklaces. Knowing that the Aqua color usually deepens when large in size. Many jewelers and amateurs tend to design large pieces of jewelry with jumbo size aqua.
Imagine wearing the sky, your dream color around your neck!
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