Simon & Schuster's Guide to Gems and Precious Stones

Simon & Schuster's Nature Guide Series

by Curzio Cipriani, Kennie Lyman (Editor), Alessandro Borelli

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.

Genres: Reference, Science, Geology, Gemstones, Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 1986

Reviews

[Monique · Rating 5 out of 5]

An encyclopedia of gems and stones, with photos of the stones in the raw as well as cut and polished. A great tool for gemology students!

[Bo Manson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book came with many good quality of photographs of gems and precious stone for easy recognition. This book are ordered by Mohs’ Scale, and divided by naturally occurred and laboratory produced stone. This compact book are useful for anyone who fascinated with the study of gems and precious stones. For those who just want to read the book, it’s quite comprehensive but still it’s better. Somewhat detail insights were discussed regarding topics like physical and chemical properties, hardness, colors and dispersion etc. Each page contained the best explanation of each gem ranging from molecular formula, crystal system, gem’s appearance, distinctive features, occurrence, value and their synthetics. Organic gems (pearl, coral, ivory and amber) are also discussed due to their pleasing appearance for ornamental purpose. Synthetic and artificial products such as glass, synthetic and artificial stones are the last topics in this book.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 2 best series on rocks minerals and fossils that i've found for field work are 'Simon & Schuster' and DK.
The photographs in the former are better than in the DK books, but the DK books are better for everything else - user-friendliness of content, detail of content, usefulness of content. The DK books generally offer more examples.