April showers bring May flowers. Along with flowers comes this month’s birthstone, the Emerald. With its rich grass green color, this birthstone looks great in the spring and summer on a piece and will make all your friends green with envy.
Folklore says the emeralds mystical powers promotes healing and love. Aside from its positive folklore we here at Precious Metals thought of the other ways emerald has been apart of our lives. By saying thought of, I mean we came up with a list of pop culture references involving an emerald.
Pop Culture References to Emerald:
1. The infamous Emerald city, the fictional capital city of Oz in the Wizard of Oz.
2. Emerald Nuts, how can we forget the always entertaining and quirky commercials, especially the ones featuring Robert Goulet.
3. The “Emerald Isle”, a nickname for Ireland.
4. “Emerald Dawn”, a DC comic series featuring the greenest Superhero from the Justice League, the Green Lantern.
5. “Emerald Cove”, a short lived television spinoff from the Mickey Mouse Club in 1993, (also the year when lil’ and innocent Justin and Britney were apart of the cast). The show/skit featured Kerri Russell and JC Chasez.
6. Actress Marlene Dietrich, known for wearing her own Emerald Jewelry in such movie roles as “Desire” and “Stage Fright”. Once, she unable to find her 37.41-carat cabochon emerald ring which she thought she had removed in the kitchen before baking a cake for a dinner party. The house was turned upside down but the ring couldn’t be found. It was at dessert when they found her lost ring, inside the cake.
7. Emerald Martini: 1 1/2 oz gin, 1/2 oz dry vermouth, 1/8 oz Green Chartreuse®, 1 twist lemon peel. In a shaker mix all ingredients with crushed ice, and pour into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with twist a lemon zest.
Now that we have filled you head with useless, but extremely fun Emerald Facts and history, lets get down to business. While an emerald has a hardness of 7.5 to 8 out of 10 on the Mohs scale, which measures resistance to scratching, they are very brittle and prone to breaking. If you are going to invest in emerald jewelry, look for earrings and necklaces rather than abuse prone rings. Most natural emeralds are treated, usually by soaking them in oil. The oil fills surface fissures and makes the stone look more uniform.
Never put your emeralds in an ultrasonic cleaner or use jewelry cleaner, as both can remove the oil and change the appearance of your stone. Clean your emeralds with lukewarm water and a soft toothbrush.
Synthetic emeralds have been available since 1964. They are the same chemical compound as a natural emerald, but have been created in a lab. They have fantastic color and are an affordable alternative to the natural stone.
