Gem Durability

[BTO]

Hi Everyone!

Wondering if anyone could give me some suggestions for gemstones with high durability. (Colored gems, not diamonds).

I''m looking for something that could withstand everyday wear, or at least frequent wear (for a ring). I know Sapphires hold up very well, but not sure how the others perform. In particular I''m curious about tourmalines, garnets, and spinels.

I''ve looked at the mohs scale, but I was hoping some actual consumers and stone lovers out there could give me a better idea.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
Brandy

 

[mike04456]

For everyday wear in rings, rubies, sapphires, garnets, spinel, alexandrite, and jade are all good.

Opal, pearls, and emerald can be tricky. They are okay in other settings but not in rings that will be worn everyday.

Tourmaline, tanzanite, and topaz are okay but not great. They are either on the soft side or prone to fracturing if struck at the right angle. They can be worn in rings but should be set properly to protect them from damage.

 

[valeria101]

Hi! The answer below is very correct. To see for yourself, you might want to use some readily available 'gem library' which states the Mohs number (this is durability scale) for each gem. One such gem library is avaialble at multicolour.com. Their data is corect, as I could check over and over during my lon-time dwelling on that site.

 

[elmo]

Something else in addition to Mohs hardness that the gg's could address here is "toughness", or susceptibility to chipping and cleavage. It is not something I see discussed as much. If I understand, two substances with similar hardness can have different wearability due to this.

 

[mike04456]

Elmo, that's correct. Emerald, for example, has a hardness of 7.5, but its crystal structure and frequent inclusions make it prone to breakage. Jade, on the other hand, has a hardness of only 6-7, but has exceptional toughness because of its polycrystalline nature.

"Cleavage" is the ability of a crystal to break cleanly along molecular lines. Tanzanite and topaz both have a "perfect" cleavage plane, which means they can snap in half if struck at the right angle. Garnet, spinel, and corundum (ruby/sapphire) do not have cleavage planes, so with their hardness of 8 and 9 respectively, they make excellent ring stones.

Believe it or not, diamond--with a hardness of 10--actually has four perfect cleavage planes, which means it is not quite as "tough" as corundum or jade.

 

[lequelam]

Dear BTO ,

Please go to this web page for your information that you need about Gemstone Care . From there you will able to compare the hardness of the gems and how to take care it

http://www.jewelryartdesigns.com/index.html

Regards

 

[Michael_E]

Hi Brandy,
Spinel, garnet, and tourmaline are all adequately durable for most ring uses, and as lawgem said, setting them in a protected mounting will give you the most piece of mind. The most important thing, of course, is how you use the piece. For instance,I have a client who insists on wearing her beautiful aquamarine ring, (square cushion cut, open setting), where she works. She stocks pipe fittings, nuts and bolts in a hardware store! This is a guaranteed way to wipe out anything that you're wearing in short order. If I were you, I'd buy whatever stone you like and then have a setting made for it. If you set the stone below the level of the goldwork it'll be protected from everything but a direct impact from the front. I actaully made a ring once that mounted a fantastic opal from the inside of the mounting and also had a diagonal bar over the top of it, from the front. This did two things, it protected the stone totally and covered a "dead" spot in the opal. There are lots of ways to arrive at what you want.

 

[elmo]

Interesting that this thread came back up to the top.

I was in a local store this weekend and practically got into an argument with one of the owners about the durability of sapphire. They showed a beautiful JB Star ring with a 4.5 carat center sapphire that prompted the discussion; the owner claimed that only diamond can be worn daily, that corundum is a special occasion material. She had scratched hers on metal furniture some years earlier, and said that facet junctions of antique sapphires usually show significant wear.

I was like, "huh?"

Another interesting thing to me was that I hardly ever see unheated sapphire that's as well cut as that one was. It's like being untreated should be good enough

, but in reality it's not.

 

[mike04456]

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On 11/24/2003 3:12:10 PM elmo wrote:











She had scratched hers on metal furniture some years earlier, and said that facet junctions of antique sapphires usually show significant wear.

I was like, 'huh?'

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Actually, that's not far off the truth. Estate sapphires will typically show a certain amount of wear. "Significant" depends on what your definition is, though. And while steel will not
"scratch" corundum, if you whack the table of a sapphire against a sharp metal corner, you'd better believe you can damage it.

My wife owns a garnet ring she wore every day for several years, and when I looked at it recently under my loupe, I could see that the facet junctions had become severely worn down. (While garnet is not as hard as corundum, it's not soft either--you get the point.) Antique diamonds often show some wear as well.

"Only diamond can be worn everyday" is overstating it, though--not something I've ever heard before.