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Aquamarine From lightest sky-blue to the deep blue of the sea – aquamarines show all these shades of an exceptionally beautiful range of usually light blues. It is a truly fascinating stone. Women all over the world covet it because of its fine blue colour, which suits almost any complexion or eye-colour to perfection, and creative gemstone artists get their inspiration for new cuts more often from aquamarines than from other stones. Its light blue arises feelings such as sympathy, trust, harmony or friendship. These are good feelings, which involve a partner or companion, and prove their vale in long-lasting relationships. Aquamarine blue is a divine and eternal colour, since it is, after all, the colour of the skies. Aquamarine blue, however, is also the colour of water with its life-giving properties. And in fact aquamarine seems to have managed to embody the light blue of the seas. This is not surprising, for according to legend it has its origin in the treasure chest of the legendary mermaids, and has for ages been reputed to be a lucky stone for sailors. Its name has been derived from the Latin terms "aqua” meaning water, and "mare” or sea. Allegedly its powers develop best if the stone is immersed in sun-drenched water. However, it seems a wiser course to carry it, because according to ancient traditions, carrying an aquamarine is supposed to guarantee a happy marriage and to make its owner happy and rich at that – the ideal gemstone, not only for lovers and married couples. Gemstone with many excellent characteristics
Santa Maria makes the hearts bet faster The light blue of this fine Beryl finds more and more friends. The different shades of Aquamarine are distinguished by their own promising names: "Santa Maria” is the name for the rare, intensely deep blue Aquamarines found in the Santa Maria de Itabira mine in Brazil, and they are bound to cause excitement among gemstone lovers in general. Similar colours are found in some of the sparse Aquamarine gemstone mines in Africa, especially in Mozambique. In order to better distinguish them, these Aquamarines are denoted as "Santa Maria Africana”. Not quite as deeply blue are "Espirito Santo” Aquamarines from the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo. Another beautiful colour has in fact been named in honour of a Brazilian beauty queen from 1954, and has become famous as "Martha Rocha”.
Favourite stone of modern designers There is hardly another gemstone, which is equally often used for modern jewellery design in such versatile variety. Clear and transparent in classical steps cut, or as modern fancy cut: Aquamarine is always fascinating and beautiful. Even uncut or with many inclusions, which designers often opt to include on purpose when developing their cuts, the stone is ideal for realising imaginative creations. Designers have named it their favourite stone. Again and again they surprise everybody with new and modern cuts, which they seem to prefer to craft in Aquamarine. These creative designer cuts have no doubt contributed to its high popularity. Aquamarine’s light colour makes it easy to discern inclusions within. Therefore Aquamarines should be as transparent as possible. But sometimes the design of the cuts adds special attractiveness to a stone by including these imperfections to create special effects. Aquamarine’s light colour allows for a special creative freedom for designers to bring out the character and brilliance of a stone by integrating fine fissures and traces, rounded shapes as well as edges. Thus each Aquamarine becomes a unique original, which no woman will be able to resist.
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Aquamarine is one
of our most popular and famous gemstones and is characterised by many
excellent features. It is almost as popular as the classical stones
Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald. It is related to Emerald, which just like
Aquamarine belongs to the gemstone family of Beryls. However, the
colour is more evenly distributed throughout the stone in Aquamarines
compared to Emeralds. More frequent in occurrence than its famous
green brother, Aquamarine is usually almost free of inclusions. It
possesses a good hardness (7 _ to 7 _ on the Mohs’ scale), and
a breathtaking brilliance. Its good hardness makes it quite robust
and protects it generally from getting scratched. Iron is the substance
responsible for the colour in Aquamarine, and the shades of blue displayed
range from almost colourless pale blue through to bright sea blue.
The more intense the colour of an Aquamarine, the higher its value.
Some Aquamarines show a slightly greenish hue – that is also
considered typical. But a really pure and clear blue is still cherished
as typical Aquamarine colour, as it best brings out the immaculate
transparency and high brilliance of this gemstone.
The names of the
colours already point out the importance of Brazil as the main country
where Aquamarines are found. Most of the rough crystals on the world
market come from the gemstone mines of this huge South American country.
From time to time, then, large Aquamarine crystals of immaculate transparency
and splendid colour are found here, a rare occurrence indeed where
these gemstones are concerned. Now and then even sensationally large
crystals are found, such as, e.g., in 1910 at Maraimba/ Minas Gerais,
where a 110.5 kg crystal was mined. Or there is the "Dom Pedro”
weighing 26 kg, which was cut in 1992 by Idar-Oberstein gemstone artist
Bernd Munsteiner, thus achieving the title of largest ever cut Aquamarine.
Nevertheless, Aquamarines are also found in other countries, such
as, for example, Nigeria, Madagascar, Mozambique, Afghanistan or Pakistan.
