ORDER     Rough Index     What's New List     Our Privacy Policy     Contact Us

Gem and Lapidary Materials provides a comprehensive overview of the materials used in the lapidary arts throughout history and up to the present. It is about minerals and rocks as lapidary materials. The descriptions stress how the material looks to the lapidary artist, or jeweler or connoisseur. This is not a book about mineralogy, nor a book about how to cut stones - it is about the materials of lapidary, the art of the ages.

Chapters include Introduction to Gem and Lapidary Materials, The Gems of History, Transparent Faceting Materials, Crystalline Quartz, Cryptocrystalline Quartz: The Agate Family, Quartz: Opaque But Colorful, Quartz: Strange and Wonderful Pseudomorphs, Cabochon Favorites of Yesterday and Today, Cabochon and Carving Materials, Ornamental and Decorative Gem Materials, Phenomenal Gems: Stars and Stripes, Metallic Gem Materials, Organic Gem Materials: Gems fro Life, Rare, Little Known and Unusual Gem Materials, and Gems from the Laboratory and Factory. Appendices provide information on the Refractive Index and Dispersion of Gemstones, Educational Associations, and Topical Publications. A particularly comprehensive bibliography lists several hundred related books and references.

Other Websites of Interest: