It was Cleopatra's most favorite gemstone. The Incas and Aztecs regarded it as healing stones.
The emerald was probably named after the Greek word "smaragdos"which roughly means "the green goddess of every stone". For ancient Greeks and Romans emeralds were as precious as diamonds.

In fact, it was the most beloved gem of antiquity. They were also found in the sarcophagi of Egyptian mummies and emeralds in Pompeii and Herculaneum were also found in great number.
According to the traditional beliefs, it embodies the pursuit of goodness, beauty and truth.
According to the medieval superstitions, it corrects the vision, shows the future, and its owner is filled with hope.
It was considered to be an effective aphrodisiac and a love stimulant.
According to Plinius (27-79 B.C.) “by watching the emerald, the eyes will never get tired”.

Perhaps this was why Nero (37-78 B.C.), the Roman emperor looked at the deadly play of gladiators through polished emeralds.

Its color is probably due to little chromium oxide.
Although it is believed by others that the dying material is some kind of organic compound since the the emerald loses its color during the heating process. Older emeralds were provided by the Red Sea Dsebel Sabarath mines.

Prior to the discovery of America, emeralds had been among the rarest because the richest emerald mines are in Colombia.

The ancient emeralds are probably from Egyptian mines in which, according to the Egyptian hieroglyphic records, mining had been carried out in 1650 B.C. Here are the stones of Queen Cleopatra
originates from. The source material is mica/ mica-slate and the static pale. In the 16th century he Peruvian emerald mines were discovered, but these mines are totally exhausted nowadays.

Urals Emeralds were discovered , by accident, in 1831 by forest Worker Maxim Stefanovitch Kozhevnikov while collecting branches. The size of the crystals was quite remarkable; there were found even 20 cm in size.

The gemstone are rarely larger than 1 karat and above this size, they represent a very rare collector value.

Currently most of the emeralds originates from the Muso Mines (Santa Fé do Bogota, Tunka Valley, Columbia) and are produced from white limestone; this limestone forms vessels/veins in the clay-slates /argillite. Limestone is the carrier rock which when broken into pieces the emerald is revealed.

Beautiful pieces can be found in the Hungarian National Museum.
Other quarry: Ural, Salzburg Alps, Ireland, North Carolina.

The emerald should be treated with caution, because the flawless stones are very rare. The errors usually do not show up right away; while wearing the color of the stone changes in patches! Inclusion may occur such as: liquid, solid or gas.

When performing stone setting, extra caution should be used since emeralds can easily break along the inclusions.

The most valuable emeralds are the " grass-green", slightly "angry green" ones.
If the emerald is full of cracks, then it is called. "Mohos Smaragd" as well.
It is common that people try to replace emeralds with some cheaper substitute stones.

The most common are:

green tourmaline
green fluorite
green apatite
malachite
alexandrite
olivine
chrysolite
diopside
green glass (e.g. the giant fake emerald of the Reichenau Monastery which is actually glass.)

It is common for traders, other cheaper stones, to "sniff" the word "smaragd" so that they can ask for a higher price.

It is common for traders to “smuggle” into other cheaper stones, to the ostentatious word "smaragd" so that they hike the price up. Here are some examples:

Brazilian emerald: Green Tourmaline
Oriental emerald: Green Corundum
Estuary emerald: Olivin
False Emerald: Grass-green FluoriteFluorine Fluoride
Red Emerald or Smaragd-Huss: Fluorite
Lithium Emerald: Hiddenite
Cooper Lighting Emerald: Dioptas
Cap smaragd: Prehnit

The emerald is usually polished or chiseled into table of stones; it is rarely polishes in diamond form. brilliant. The obscure and cracked stones are sometimes polished into convex shape. The flawless, beautifully colored emeralds are set into “clawed sockets”, the less good colors are clamped into a “capsule sockets”.

The light colored emeralds' clamps are shelled / cased with green sheets, and the bottom of the faulty stones is painted black so that mistakes are not visible from the top.

András Mihalovits jeweller

+36 20 270 7777