Antique jewelry glossary

Welcome to our extensive antique jewelry glossary with around 1,500 jewelry related entries.If you feel you are missing an explanation, feel free to let us know and we will add it.

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Demantoid

See our: demantoid jewelry.

A sub-variety of andradite and the moat valuable of the garnets, the color ranges from dark green (hence sometimes miscalled "Uralian emerald")to yellowish-green (hence sometimes miscalled "olivine"). It is the most expensive and rare of garnet gemstones, with fine specimens commanding prices of thousands of dollars per carat!

It has many similarities with the diamond ("demant"), hence its name (meaning 'diamond-like'), but it has low hardness, so that it is not suitable for hard wear as jewelry. The stones have inclusions of fine asbestos fibers (byssolite) that are sometimes called ponytails.