Men are becoming bolder and are making fashion statements in wearing ‘manly jewellery’ set with relatively inexpensive gemstones.
Traditionally, the most popular gems worn by men were neutral coloured such as black onyx or agate, grey moonstone and mother of pearl. However, the more adventurous gentlemen today, wear bold coloured gems such as dark red garnet, blue lapis lazuli, spinel of all colours, Jadeite and especially black diamonds.
Jewellery designers are designing jewellery for men using stong coloured gems and unconventional materials such as ceramic, cement, stainless steel, titanium, silver even leather
Garnet
Red is only one of the colours of garnet. The most popular varieties are: Almandine (red), Rhodolite (purplish), Tsavorite (green), Spessartite (yellow-brown). Garnet has a good hardness, ranging from 7-7.05 on the Moh’s Scale of hardness, and the better stones show excellent brilliance.
Garnet is commonly used as an industrial abrasive and when mixed with water under high pressure, is used for sand-blasting and steel cutting. It’s tough – no wonder it is popular with men.
Lapis Lazuli
This opaque gem has a vivid blue colour with gold-like specs (in fact, the specs are pyrite, also known as ‘fool’s gold”) ‘Lapis’ without white streaks of calcite are the most valuable. Polished slabs set in yellow gold make exquisite cufflinks or signet rings and have been a favourite gem for men over many decades.
Jadeite
In the gem trade “jade” could be one of two minerals. The one, Jadeite, or ‘true jade’ is the most expensive and can be found in different colours with emerald green the most valuable. The other ‘jade’ mineral is called Nephrite, which is inexpensive and often used to carve statuettes from.
Jadeite is not the hardest of gems but its composition makes it one of the toughest gems on earth. (Note: hardness refers to how easily a mineral scratches, while toughness implies that it will not break easily. For instance; ceramics are hard but break easily, while leather is soft but tough) Men can thus wear jadeite without fear of breakage.
Other Gems for Gents
A few other ‘masculine’ gems such as: Black Spinel, Black Tourmaline, Black opal and of course, black diamond have made their appearance recently
Cabochon cut star sapphire which comes in colours ranging from black, burgundy, grey brown and blue, because of their extreme hardness and affordable price, have also surged in popularity.
Visit our showroom or browse online for our unsurpassed varied collection of rare and precious, and also low cost and beautiful gems. Our consultants would love to hear from you and can assist you in finding the gemstone of your dreams.