Simon & Schuster's Guide to Gems and Precious Stones

Front Cover
Touchstone, Mar 13, 1986 - Nature - 384 pages
Simon & Schuster's Guide to Gems and Precious Stones provides both the connoisseur and the casual collector with a compact, easy-to-use volume describing more than 100 rare varieties of minerals whose beauty and mystery have possessed our imaginations from time immemorial. More than 450 brilliant photographs accompany profiles of each gem, covering such aspects as appearance, physical properties -- density, hardness, refraction -- occurrence, and how to judge quality and value. Additional sections describe the process of cutting gemstones and the techniques professional gemologists use to evaluate a stone's weight and optical properties.
Detailed and comprehensive, this book is essential for anyone interested in the study of gems and precious stones.

From inside the book

Contents

KEY TO SYMBOLS
6
NATURAL STONES AND GEMS
9
INTRODUCTION
10
Copyright

9 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

References to this book

The Hercules War: a Novel

No preview available

About the author (1986)

Kennie Lyman is the author of Simon & Schuster's Guide to Gems and Precious Stones, a Simon & Schuster book.

Bibliographic information