Tanya
on
Aug 30, 2008 12:18 PM PDT
In the far-reaching history of gemstones in jewelry, alexandrite is one of the "newer" stones, having been discovered in the Ural Mountains of Russia in the 1830s and named for Czar Alexander II at his coming of age ceremony; other gems such as turquoise, rubies, and pearls, have deeply ancient roots. So what's so exciting about relative newcomer alexandrite, affectionately called "alex" by many jewelers? For starters, it's truly scarce: natural alexandrite is extremely rare, especially in sizes over one carat. But the most fascinating aspect of this gem is its color-change characteristic, with the best quality stones displaying a brilliant verdant green in sunlight or fluorescent light and shifting to a remarkably rich red in incandescent light or candlelight; lesser quality stones are still unusually lovely, showing blue-green in fluorescent light and plummy purple in incandescent light. Read on for more on how to tell real from fake, and click my SLIDESHOW for some more of the amazing Alex!
