pregcurious
Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2009
- Messages
- 6,725
There are probably other posts about this, but I thought it would fun to write about my visit today to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Of course, I went straight to the gems and minerals exhibit. I've been here several times, but it was either before I started buying gems, or with other people who didn't appreciate gemstones.
I didn't take any pictures, but here's a pretty good video of the first room (which is pretty small), showing many of the main pieces:
http://wn.com/The_Carmen_Lucia_Ruby_Ring_English_Version
This first room is pretty dark, and holds the Hope diamond (in a relatively new setting shown below) in a stand-alone case, with crystals and gemstone jewelry pieces in floor and small wall-inset cases. The Hope diamond is surprisingly dark in color, but still has great brilliance, which is really neat. It illustrates how stones with great clarity can carry deep hue, saturation, and tone very well. There are 2 giant pink and yellow topaz crystals that are amazing. There a several jewelery pieces including rubies from Burma (rough, a bracelet, and the Carmen Lucia ring shown below). There are several pieces with emeralds from Columbia (including ring shown below), and sapphires (mostly Sri Lankan if I remember correctly--amazing necklace below), and other high end stones.
In a larger and open white room are large cases with crystals and gems, and some jewelry pieces of every gemstone I've ever wanted to see. I am partial to red stones, so I looked at these. In the ruby section, they have several Thai rubies that had great clarity and the well-known rosy red Thai color. There's also a beautiful stop light red beryl that is included.
I didn't take any pictures, but here's a pretty good video of the first room (which is pretty small), showing many of the main pieces:
http://wn.com/The_Carmen_Lucia_Ruby_Ring_English_Version
This first room is pretty dark, and holds the Hope diamond (in a relatively new setting shown below) in a stand-alone case, with crystals and gemstone jewelry pieces in floor and small wall-inset cases. The Hope diamond is surprisingly dark in color, but still has great brilliance, which is really neat. It illustrates how stones with great clarity can carry deep hue, saturation, and tone very well. There are 2 giant pink and yellow topaz crystals that are amazing. There a several jewelery pieces including rubies from Burma (rough, a bracelet, and the Carmen Lucia ring shown below). There are several pieces with emeralds from Columbia (including ring shown below), and sapphires (mostly Sri Lankan if I remember correctly--amazing necklace below), and other high end stones.
In a larger and open white room are large cases with crystals and gems, and some jewelry pieces of every gemstone I've ever wanted to see. I am partial to red stones, so I looked at these. In the ruby section, they have several Thai rubies that had great clarity and the well-known rosy red Thai color. There's also a beautiful stop light red beryl that is included.
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