Gems HQ

The main color of topaz gem is yellow. That is why Romans associated it with their god of sun Jupiter. Even in Ancient Egypt topaz was believed to have the golden glow of sun god Ra. These divine attributes believed to protect faithful topaz gem wearer against the evil charms. Besides the yellow color topaz can be found in such shades like deep cognac, amber gold, peach and other warm shades between brown and orange. There are rare exceptions of pink, red and even blue topaz gems.

There are a lot of legends about magical abilities of topaz gems. For example in Ancient Greece believed that the gem can make its wearer invisible and invulnerable to the arrows. It was also considered that topaz could change its color when placed in poisoned wine. It was said that topaz dispels enchantments and improves eyesight. And what is more – its mystical curative powers depended on the phases of the moon. It was said to cure asthma, insomnia, and hemorrhages.

The most famous representatives of topaz gems are giant stones set in the Portuguese Crown Braganza and a beautiful gemstone that is set in the Green Vault in Dresden (one of the world’s important gem collections).

As I have mentioned before the unique blue topaz gemstone has appeared to. This was possible due to irradiation and heat treatment. Blue topaz begins its life as colorless, sometimes lightly tinted natural topaz gem crystals that are at first irradiated to change the color to blue and than heated to make change stable. Blue topaz is priced cheaper than the precious topaz gem. And nowadays there is a slight shortage with gem production. It is due to poor economics. Working reactor time is quite expensive, while there are more profitable gems which can be treated without the need for such an extensive holding period.

You may be have heard of a term "precious topaz gem". It appeared in order to distinguish orange and yellow topaz gems from other stones like citrines and quartz that have much in common (especially color). Topaz is considered to be a hard gem (with refractive index and hardness of 8 pts.), but unfortunately it can be split just with a single blow. The same thing actually may occur even with diamonds. To avoid such situations topaz gems should be protected from hard knocks.

Birthstones are very significant in the life of people of today. Through the years all the significance almost lost its sense. Birthstones were associated with twelve signs of zodiac, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve months of the year. For the consumers of today birthstone gemstones are nice gifts for birthdays, holidays and anniversaries. Topaz is the birthstone for those born in the month of November. The origin of its name came from the Sanskrit "fire".

When choosing a topaz gem for your collection of jewelry, remember – hue and saturation of color are the primary value determiners of topaz. Pink or red stones mixed in with the yellow or orange the higher the value. The most precious topaz gem is native cut in Brazil, that is why custom cuts are strong value enhancers.