Fely's Jewelry and Pawnshop

Minerals form under various conditions in the earth. Most gemstones form in the Earth’s crust; the top layer of the Earth, with a depth of 3 to 25 miles. Only two gemstone varieties – diamond and peridot – form in the Earth’s mantle, which represents 80% of the Earth’s volume. The mantle consists mostly of molten rock called magma with a solid […]

People often email us photos of gemstones and ask us for help in identifying their stones. We try to be helpful, but even the best gemologist in the world cannot properly identify a gemstone from a photograph. Indeed, even a detailed visual inspection of the actual gemstone is rarely sufficient for gemstone identification. Jeweler’s Loupe

The Mohs scale of mineral hardness was created by the German mineralogist, Friedrich Mohs in 1822 to measure the relative hardness or scratch resistance of various minerals. He based it on ten readily available minerals. Since it is an ordinal scale, two minerals must be compared in order to decide which is harder. Almost everyone buying gemstones

Today, there are over 130 different varieties of precious and semi-precious gemstones available. Many of the different gemstone types belong to a larger common family or umbrella group of related gems. Gemstones from GemSelect In many cases, gemstone groups are based on physical properties, such as water content or optical phenomena, for example, cat’s eye gemstones, rutilated

There are different ways of organizing the world’s gemstones. The science of mineralogy sorts the various minerals into ten different mineral classes, based on their chemical composition. The classes include basic elements, sulfides, halides, oxides and hydroxides, carbonates and nitrates, phosphates, silicates, and organic substances. Within these classes are species. Each species has a well-defined chemical