The first time I saw a tanzanite, I assumed it was a sapphire. It was at a jewelry store in New York, and the stone was magnificent—a deep, velvety blue with hints of purple that seemed to shift as I moved it under the lights. I asked the saleswoman about its origin, expecting to hear…
The first time someone showed me a tray of tourmalines, I asked which one was the “real” one. The dealer—a patient woman who had clearly dealt with novices before—just smiled. “They’re all real,” she said. “Tourmaline comes in every color. That’s the whole point.” I stared at the tray. Pink stones that looked like sapphires….
The first “citrine” I ever bought was actually heat-treated amethyst. I didn’t know that at the time, of course. I was twenty-three, browsing a gem show, and I saw this beautiful golden-orange stone that reminded me of honey, of sunshine, of everything warm and bright. The price was right, the color was stunning, and I…
For years, I thought topaz was just that blue stone—the one that looks like aquamarine but costs less. You know the one. It’s in every mall jewelry store, every online catalog, every “affordable gemstone” roundup. Sky blue. Swiss blue. London blue. I’d walk past cases of it without a second glance, assuming I knew everything…
For years, I thought sapphires were just blue. Not in a dismissive way—I knew blue sapphires were beautiful, that they were one of the “big three” colored gemstones alongside ruby and emerald, that they’d adorned royalty for centuries. But when I pictured a sapphire, I pictured blue. Deep, velvety, cornflower blue. The color of Princess…
The first opal I ever bought was a lie. I was eighteen, traveling through Australia, and I’d heard that Coober Pedy was the opal capital of the world. I took a bus into the desert, visited a mine, and bought a beautiful black opal from a man who swore it was the real thing. It…
I have never forgotten the first ruby that made me cry. It wasn’t the largest ruby I’d ever seen. It wasn’t the most famous or the most expensive. It was a 3.5-carat cushion-cut stone from Mozambique, set simply in platinum, sitting on a black velvet tray at a gem show in Tucson. I’d walked past…
I first encountered alexandrite in a way that felt almost like a magic trick. I was visiting a gem dealer in New York, a man who had been in the trade for fifty years and took particular pleasure in watching newcomers react to stones they’d never seen. He reached into his case and pulled out…
I didn’t understand moonstone until I saw it in moonlight. That sounds like the kind of thing a jewelry writer says to sound poetic, but I mean it literally. I’d owned a moonstone cabochon for years—a milky oval, pale as cream, with a faint blue shimmer that appeared and disappeared depending on how I held…
I remember the first time I held a piece of aquamarine that actually looked like the sea. It wasn’t my first aquamarine—I’d owned a pale blue beryl for years, a ring I’d bought at a gem show because I liked the color and the price was right. That stone was pretty enough, but it didn’t…