Tag Archives: July Birthstone

Carnelian

Carnelian is the trade name for chalcedony with warm primary colors. While carnelian is traditionally a solid shade of red or orange, “carnelian” has become an encompassing term in the trade that can include sardonyx, which is banded red, orange, yellow, and white chalcedony, and sard: a loose term from Antiquity usually denoting a darker,…

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Ruby – July Birthstone

The moniker “The King of Gemstones” sounds pretty impressive, doesn’t it? Do you think it belongs to diamond? It doesn’t; ruby got that name when diamonds were still largely unmined and unusable as gemstones because the technology did not exist to fashion them. The phrase actually comes from the Sanskrit word for ruby: ratnaraj. Anything…

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