April Birthstone
Diamonds – Fire and ice and flash
April’s main birthstone, the diamond, has been lauded in song and movies as the promise of forever. A diamond can speak volumes. It can say I love you, I’m proud of you and I’d marry you all over again. It shouts ‘Will you marry me?’ and whispers ‘You’re enchanting and beautiful’. A diamond on the third finger of the left hand tells the world that your heart is taken. Diamond can be worn by anyone. They are the classic symbol of achievement, of love and of promise.
For all the volumes it speaks, though, the diamond has its lesser known secrets as well, fascinating tidbits for those who collect stray information – or to dazzle your friends with if the diamond is your birthstone. Most people are aware of the famous Four C’s of diamonds – carat, cut, color and clarity – but there are fun facts to know associated with each of those C’s.
Did you know, for instance, that the word carat comes from the Arabic word for carob seed? In ancient times, diamonds were weighed in a scale with the other side weighted by carob seeds. The seeds are a remarkably precise instrument of measurement. Even today with electronically calibrated scales, we can’t detect more than 1/3000ths of an ounce difference in weight between individual carob seeds. One carob seed weighs 1 carat – or 200 milligrams.
Diamonds, most of us know, are made of pure carbon, compressed for centuries by heat and the weight of the earth. The clarity and color of the stone is determined by the purity of the carbon. Even minute traces of other minerals can change the color or cloud a diamond. That knowledge is relatively recent though. Until the latter half of the 20th century, with the advances in spectrographic microscopes, determining the precise chemical composition of a gemstone wasn’t always easy. In trying to explain the variances in the color of diamonds, the ancients offered fanciful and romantic theories. The most common and lovely was that diamonds took on the color of the sky at the moment that they became diamonds. Thus, a diamond formed at dawn might have a trace of gold or orange, or even that shimmering pale green that is rarely seen, and one created at noon would reflect the pure azure of the noon sky. Those formed under cloudy skies would have a hint of gray or even black, and those that were formed under the night time sky would be colorless and completely transparent.
Those colorless diamonds are the ones that are the most valued and highly prized as a general rule, but there is a class of diamonds called ‘fancies’ – colored diamonds – and among those fancy diamonds are some of the most famous diamonds in the world. Did you know, for instance, that the Hope Diamond, better known for its famous owners and its curse, is a blue diamond? Its color is such a deep, intense blue that the enormous diamond is nearly opaque. The Hope diamond was the model for the Heart of the Ocean necklace worn by Rose in the movie Titanic.
Did you know that the Hope has a sister diamond? Generally considered to be the only diamond that approaches the Hope for rarity and value, the Dresden diamond was owned by the royal house of Saxony in the 1700s. It weighs 40.70 carats – just shy of five carats less than the Hope diamond – and is a clear, shimmering apple green. A third famous diamond – the Tiffany diamond – is a canary diamond, a deep, rich topaz in color.
Diamonds are associated with romance, their rarity and value making them the gift of choice to show the value you place on the one that you love. But diamonds have other qualities as well. In India, the diamond is called the King Gem (with the pearl as his Queen), and are bequeathed the property of aiding clear thought and determination. They symbolize constancy and love, devotion and purity, and – according to tradition – in order to carry those qualities, they must be pure – colorless and transparent. A flawed diamond, it used to be believed, is so unlucky it can deprive the gods of their highest heavens.
Diamonds are at the top of the Mohs hardness scale with a hardness of 10, and are generally acknowledged to be the hardest mineral in the world. Besides being the birthstone for April, the diamond is the modern traditional stone for engagement rings (because, after all, a diamond is forever) and of the 75th wedding anniversary. With its multitude of symbolisms and meanings, though, a diamond is the perfect stone for any occasion. Diamonds – the tradition of the ages and the promise of forever.
White topaz – Fire and fog
The crystal fire of white topaz is an alternate birthstone for the month of April. The name topaz, according to one source, is derived from the Sanskrit word for ‘fire’, a fitting tribute to the sparkle and play of light in fine white topaz. There is another tradition, though, that claims the name is taken from the name of the island Topazios, which was in turn named for the Greek word meaning ‘to seek’. The island, it was claimed, was so wrapped in fog at all times that it was nearly impossible to find. A mystery wrapped in fog, a fire captured in ice – no matter which you believe, the white topaz has a crystal beauty and sparkle that is found in few other stones.
Like all topaz, the white topaz represents loyalty and righteousness, and has the power to protect its wearer against misfortune and sudden death. He who wears white topaz has the ability to keep a cool head in all circumstances, for topaz has the power to blunt anger and cool emotions. Both the Egyptians and the Romans associated topaz with the Sun, and while that association is clearest in yellow varieties of topaz, the clear white topaz confers crystal clarity, compassion and warmth on those that wear it. Always associated with true love, trust, relationships and communication, it is a fitting birthstone for those born in the month that harbors both the gregarious Aries and the empathetic and solid Taurus.
Topaz is an alumina silicate with a hardness of 8 on the Mohs scale. It is mined in many places around the world – but surprisingly, the island for which it may have been named is not one of them. Modern gemologists believe that the ‘topaz’ that were found on Topazios may in fact have been peridots. Still, the mystery and glamour of the name, and the tradition of clear-seeing that the white topaz confers, make it an apt name for the glittering stone that carries both fire and ice at its heart.
Cubic zirconia – Fabulous fire
If you love the fire and flash of diamonds, but the April birthstone is out of your price range, welcome to the modern world. First created in 1969, cubic zirconia has rapidly become an alternative to diamonds in April birthstone jewelry. Cubic zirconia has been named the Fabulous Fake, and from the time of its introduction, even experienced gemologists were often fooled by cubic zirconias. The name doesn’t do the beautiful stone justice, though. These days, people are buying cubic zirconia for its own qualities rather than as a ‘diamond substitute’.
And why shouldn’t they? To the untrained – and even to many trained – eyes, cubic zirconia appears identical to a diamond, but there are subtle differences. A cubic zirconia has less brilliance and more fire, the bright flashes of color that catch light. Flawless by nature, cubic zirconia can also be made in a wide variety of colors from pure white fire to the deep, rich blue of the Hope diamond. While there are other birthstones that give you a choice of colors to choose from, there are none with quite the number of variations. In addition, cubic zirconia doesn’t share the diamond’s one fundamental weakness – cleavage. A diamond has four directions of ‘perfect cleavage’, and if struck from any of those directions, it will split. One mark of a skilled jeweler is his ability to set a diamond so that it can’t be struck from any of those directions. Cubic zirconia has no cleavage at all, which increases the number of setting styles in which a stone may be used.
With a hardness of 8.5 on the Mohs scale, cubic zirconia is softer than a diamond, but harder than nearly every other gemstone in existence. Its remarkable beauty, its durability and its heart of true fire make the cubic zirconia a fitting substitute for the diamond as the April birthstone.
