Avoid mass-manufactured gems and opt for a unique jewel that reflects your personality and taste

One-of-a-KindNV Gems Oct Nov '16

Avoid mass-manufactured gems and opt for a unique jewel that reflects your personality and taste.

By Scott Bohall

If you only get plain vanilla ice cream, only order cheese pizza, exclusively wear one color, or are a creature of unwavering dedication to uniformity, this article is not for you.

Most jewelry is mass manufactured, no matter if you see it on television, cruise ships, malls, or even at most small jewelers. Mass production is great for some things, but jewelry isn’t one of them. It should reflect your personality and taste, not what some guy in China created for every mall in America.

There are hundreds of really cool gems that because of size, shape, color, and cutting style, are unique only to the one person who owns it. Not all of these are expensive. Some are very inexpensive, but are not available in mass production, as there’s not enough supply to make calibrated sizes of those gems.

Here’s a list of mass-manufactured stones and more unique alternatives to try:

Mass manufactured (green): lab-created emeralds. Alternatives: tsavorite, chrome tourmaline, and diopside.

Mass manufactured (purple): cheap amethyst. Alternatives: AZ 4peaks amethyst, purple sapphire, purple spinel, and purple tanzanite.

Mass manufactured (bright blue): lab-created sapphire. Alternatives: Genuine sapphire, apatite, and indicolite.

Mass manufactured (red): lab-created ruby. Alternatives: Genuine ruby, red spinel, rubellite, rhodolite, red zircon, and AZ ant hill garnet.

Mass manufactured (orange): not much produced. Alternatives: mandarin garnet, orange sapphire, and Mexican fire opal

Mass manufactured (earthy stones): dyed black onyx. Alternatives: fossil dinosaur bone, AZ jasper, dendrite quartz, druzy, boulder opal, larimar, turquoise, lapis, sugilite, charolite, and zoisite.

Mass manufactured (multi): Mystic topaz and other coated gems. Alternatives: fire agate, yowah opal, and andalusite.

Mass manufactured (color-changing gems): only synthetic gems used. Alternatives: color-change garnets, color-change spinel, color-change sapphire, and alexandrite.

Be bold and unique. The world if full of interesting choices for those who want to explore more than plain vanilla.

 

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