What is a Carat?

You may have noticed that with most gemstone pieces here and on other sites like Belinda's, the "carat" weight of rubies, topaz or other gemstones are given.

So are these gemstone carats different from diamond carats ? And are carats and karats related?

Carats -- It's All About Weight
Simply put, a carat is a unit of weight for diamonds and other gemstones, although in the past, only diamonds were measured in carats. Diamond carats and ruby carats and rose quartz carats and emerald carats and all other gemstone carats are all the same. One carat is equivalent to 0.2 grams and each carat is divided into 100 points: for example, a 40-point diamond is 0.4 carats.

The greater the carat, the heavier the gemstone.

Carats do not refer to the dimensions (ie. how big/small it looks) of a gemstone. The dimensions of a gemstone are determined by a variety of factors, including cut.

Karats -- It's All About Purity
A karat is a unit of purity when used with gold. For example, 24-karat (or 24K) gold = pure gold. 14-karat (or 14K) gold = 14 parts gold, 10 parts some other metal.

For gold to be called gold legally, the lowest purity is 10 karats (10K).

And once again, even though gold-fill is almost as good as gold, it cannot legally be called gold, even if it is 14K gold-fill. (Technically, yes, you can get into trouble for referring to "gold-fill" as "gold", but that's another post for another day).

Useful links to check out (some sites where I got my info!):
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-carat.htm
http://www.diamondring.com/forums/diamondtutorial.php?learn=2
http://www.howstuffworks.com/question64.htm

Hope this helps!

What are Precious Gems?

Traditionally, only these were considered precious gems: Diamonds, Rubies, Emeralds & Sapphires.

And everything else, such as amethyst, topaz, citrine, etc were considered semi-precious gems.

But nowadays, these traditional terms don't mean very much anymore although the traditional precious gems are still valued above other gemstones.

Find out more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemstone

Being a traditional ole fogey, I'll stick to the old-fashioned classification system in Blingalicious. That means, only rubies, emeralds and sapphires will be referred to as precious gems here :))

Generally, the price of precious and semi-precious gems are determined by a variety of factors including cut, clarity, size, colour & rarity.

Some rare gems/minerals include andalusite (look out for upcoming creations with this relatively rare lovely dark golden cognac coloured mineral!), bixbite and cassiterite.

Another very good site to check out is the Gemological Institute of America (GIA). Just Google "GIA" -- it should be the first link. I can't put the link here because the GIA has stipulated copyright conditions concerning links to their site, but a search is simple and fast.