3 of the World's Most Durable Gemstones

Photo: Geology.in: Click to go to the website to learn more about garnets. Usually the Hessonite hue is more of a cinnamon orange.

Gemstone durability is a blend of 3 major characteristics: Hardness, toughness, and strength. Hardness is its resistance to scratches. Toughness stops breaking, cracking, and chipping. How tightly a gemstone's atoms are packed together determines its toughness. A gemstone's strength measures its resistance to shattering under pressure (i.e., how hard it is to crush).

Spessartite Garnet

If you're looking for everyday jewelry that will endure, the following 3 gemstones always top the lists of jewelry insiders. Two of the 3 gemstones are so under the public's radar, and thus less in demand, they are also good value for the money.

I. Jewelry experts consider garnet a wildly underrated gemstone. The jewel is a whole family of minerals that comes in a wide array of intense colors. With a 7.5 rating on Mohl’s Scale of Hardness, a garnet is hard enough for everyday rings. But that’s not the whole story; a garnet has no cleavage, giving it excellent toughness. A vivid green garnet, known as tsavorite, is far cheaper, cleaner, and tougher than emeralds, with none of an emerald’s fragility for chipping, cracking, or breaking. Unlike emeralds, garnets do not need oiling to hide industry-accepted inclusions. Rodolite (a combination of pink, red, and purple) exudes a raspberry hue. Spessartite is a fiery orange, and Demantoid sparkles more than diamonds.

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II. Another hard, tough, strong, and underrated gemstone is spinel, with an 8 in hardness. Spinel (MgAl2O4) grows in the same mines as rubies and, for centuries, was mistaken for a ruby (Al2O3). The only reason spinel is overlooked is that it lacks the marketing push of diamonds. Collectors understand the beauty, durability, and true value of spinel. Insiders predict that once the public catches on, the price of spinels will skyrocket. 

Photo: GIA

III. The last, most durable gemstone for everyday wear is the priciest of the 3 but worth considering as an alternative gemstone for engagement rings: Corundum has a 9 hardness rating. Rubies (red corundum is more expensive because red gemstones in nature are rarer). All other colors of corundum are sapphires. Corundum is a more durable gemstone than diamonds. They are often selected by royalty (Diana and Catherine of Wales, the York princesses) for their engagement rings, and jewelers buy them for their own family. I met a jeweler at Tiffany's who bought herself a 3.5-carat blue sapphire ring, and a jeweler at Effy who bought a sapphire ring for his daughter that will last forever!

Jewlery isn't cheap, so it pays to know which gemstones have the best combination of durability. 

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A blue spinel

Other gemstones insiders cite for durability include Alexandrite (a 9.5 in hardness), Moissanite (9.5), and Jade (6 - 7). The coveats with them are: Alexandrite is rare and thus super expensive. Moissanite is very affordable, but always lab-grown. Jade, the softest on the list, can be scratched if careless, so durable yet not to be banged around, set in rings.

Which of the durable gemstones appeals to you? I wish I owned blue and red spinels. Vietnam grows vivid blue ones.

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Taaffeite Is A Rare Gemstone

Taaffeite is one of the rarest gemstones in the world. It was first discovered as an already cut, polished, and misidentified "spinel" in a Dublin, Ireland jewelry shop by gemologist, Richard Taaffe who bought a cluster of gems in October 1945.

Taaffe noticed some inconsistencies in his "spinel" and sent a sample of the stone off to a London lab which in 1951 verified that its main components were beryllium, magnesium, and aluminum, making the hexagon crystal a newly found mineral later named taaffeite (BeMg3Al18O16).

Unlike spinel, which is only singly refractive (like diamonds and garnets), Taaffeite is doubly refractive (it blends and reflects light in all directions). Taaffeite is a transparent gemstone with a vitreous shine (like glass in appearance or physical properties).

This beryl forms in carbonate rocks in Sri Lanka and Southern Tanzania (alongside the gemstones fluorite, mica, spinel, and tourmaline). Some poor-quality taaffeite has also been discovered in China. 

Because of its rarity, taaffeite is only used as a gemstone. Registering an 8 - 8.5 on Moh's Scale of Hardness, the jewel comes in colorless, violet red, pink violet, red, light green, and mauve. Taaffeite costs an average of $1,500 - $2,500 per carat, although top-grade taaffeite can fetch $35,000 per carat. The best quality taaffeite gets bought quickly. Pink is the rarest and most expensive color.

This beryllium-magnesium-aluminum-oxide mineral is clean of inclusions, and the red is gorgeous. Imagine ... a jewelry lover wearing it would bling all over the place!

Have you ever heard of taaffeites?

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What Gives Fancy Diamonds & Sapphires Their Colors?

A  rare blue diamond

Diamonds, the element carbon in nature, are usually thought of as clear, transparent, or white. Sapphires, corundums, or aluminum oxide, are abundantly blue in nature. Yet both precious gemstones also come in several fancy colors when trace minerals (impurities) bond within each stone's chemistry as they form over billions of years in the earth's crust. 

Have you ever wondered what gives fancy diamonds and sapphires their various colors? Since I couldn't find charts via Google searches, I created 2 charts for you below, my lovely readers, listing the mineral or impurity present in each gemstone that produces its rare color. 

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First up let's take a look at fancy diamonds --

Diamond is an allotrope (meaning it has molecular modifications) of pure Carbon

Color of Diamond	Trace Impurities or minerals causing the color
Blue	Boron
Yellow and Orange	Nitrogen The Orange weights 14.82 carats
Green	Usually natural radiation
Purple	Has an unusually high presence of Hydrogen
Red and pink DeYoung Red Diamond	No trace elements are present. The color is caused by a distortion in the diamond's crystal lattice produced by intense heat and pressure from all directions after the stone's formation in the earth. A special configuration of molecules lets us see the stone as pink or red as light passes through it.
Black	Clouds of minute mineral inclusions such as graphite, pyrite, or hematite extend throughout the stone. In short, a black diamond is a bundle of inclusions in the stone.

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Next up is our 2nd featured gemstone fancy sapphires  --

Effy Jewelry in common blue and multi-colored sapphires

Below is our 2nd chart listing the trace minerals or impurities that give sapphires their most common and fancy colors.

Sapphire is a corundum, chemically, extremely hard aluminum oxide. Red corundum is a ruby, not a sapphire.

Color of Sapphire	Trace Impurities or minerals causing the color
Blue (the most sold)	Iron or Titanium
Green and Yellow	Iron or low-level radiation within the earth
Orange (padparadscha sapphire) The Natural Sapphire Company	A combination of chromium (red) and iron (yellow) or natural radiation
Purple and Violet	Vanadium or natural radiation
Pink	Chromium
When the corundum is red it is a ruby. All other colors of corundum except red, are sapphires.	Chromium

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Interesting fact: Red gemstones are the rarest in nature often making them the most costly. Red diamonds are extremely rare and expensive. Rubies tend to cost more than sapphires. The jewelry industry has a well-known saying about corundum, "If you're a buyer, you want to buy a sapphire, and if you're a seller you want to sell a ruby." So don't be fooled: Pink corundum is always a sapphire while red corundum is always a ruby. Take heed if a merchant is selling pink rubies!😁

What fun Van Cleef & Arpels designs with emeralds and fancy carnary yellow diamonds in the center dancer! We'd all be dancing if we could afford to buy them.

I hope you find my 2 charts helpful in understanding what makes fancy diamonds and sapphires. Fancy is a real term in the gemology world used for the lesser-known colors of these gemstones.

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