Uses for Aquamarine
Aquamarine shares a gemological kinship with green emerald, pink morganite and golden heliodor. Just as "emerald" means both a color and a stone, "aquamarine" describes a vivid blue-green shade as well as the beryl gem itself. The semiprecious gem's name means "seawater" in Latin; like the sea, the stone's color varies from an almost clear icy blue tinged with green to a deep azure.
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Diamond Substitute
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At its palest, an aquamarine appears almost colorless. While it lacks diamond's brilliant fire, aquamarine's sparkle and clarity make it a superficially believable substitute for diamond. Aquamarines are hardy gems; at a 7.5 to 8 on the Mohs hardness scale, they're suitable for engagement jewelry. Consider an aquamarine engagement ring if you object to the cost of a diamond, but want a natural stone with a beautiful luster.
Vintage Jewelry
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Aquamarine's distinctive color has timeless appeal in vintage jewelry. Despite its relative hardness, aquamarine's crystal structure makes the stone easy to fashion into gems. For early jewelers who lacked power tools and electric grinders for gem cutting, easily shaped stones were understandably popular. While pure blue aquamarines sell best today, vintage jewelry contains a range of blue-green to greenish gems. You're likely to find plenty of showy aquamarine cocktail rings and chokers in midcentury designs as the stone's aqua hue appealed to 1950s tastes.
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Display Gems
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Aquamarine crystals can grow huge. Raw aquamarine crystals can grow so large that mineralogists weigh them in pounds, not carats. While a gem-quality aquamarine that weighed a few ounces would make an impractical ring, it makes an attractive paperweight. Gem collectors prize unusually large, clear or colorful aquamarine specimens. Raw aquamarine's lustrous color makes it attractive in its own right, but a talented lapidary can polish the stone into traditional cuts or novel forms that highlight the unique shape of an individual crystal's growth.
Birthstone Jewelry
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Why people associate certain stones with the months of the year is uncertain, but the practice of attributing protective or lucky qualities to gems based on birthdays is at least as old as ancient Rome. Whether they offer protection or not, birthstones have become a kind of visual shorthand. Family rings feature aquamarines and other birthstones as symbols of each child or grandchild the wearer has. Aquamarine rules March, though people who celebrate a November birthday sometimes claim it as well because the gem looks similar to blue topaz.
Aquamarine Lore
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An aquamarine sphere makes a handsome crystal ball. As its name suggests, aquamarine was a favorite of Roman sailors who believed the gem's peaceful blue hue brought calm seas. Legend has it that aquamarines change color depending on the wearer's mood; they don't, but they do change hue depending on the angle at which the viewer sees them. Mineralogists call this characteristic pleochroism. Aquamarine shaped into a sphere is said to give the medium using it a clearer view of the future.
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References
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