I prefer emeralds overall.
I prefer colored stones. The central stone in my engagement ring is a sapphire, though it has small diamonds around it (hey, I like sparkly things, what can I say).
I did want to make sure to pick something up there on the Mohs scale of hardness, because I’m clumsy and I was afraid something delicate would get scratched or broken. That meant sapphire rather than emerald, garnet, amethyst, or other colored stones I like. Though I’ve been wearing a garnet ring that Mr. Neville gave me as a wedding present on my right hand all the time since about a year after the wedding, and it seems fine. I like my sapphire engagement ring, though.
I’ve never been a big fan of that form of carbon, as they’re pretty boring to look at unless they’re huge and well-lit. It was my great fortune that Bride of Caveman, who from all appearances might well be the sort of fashion-conscious woman enamored of impressive jewelry, actually fancies much funkier and unusual pieces. Therefore, she accepted as her engagement ring an absolutely huge (and surprisingly inexpensive) pearl, flanked with a few tiny diamonds. She get positive comments frequently, often in my presence.
I’m not a fan of diamonds as a main stone, but I don’t mind them as very small accents to a beautiful colored stone. Right now that means earthy colors like garnet, smoky quartz, amber, topaz. But it used to be emeralds and sapphires, so I figure my tastes will change again in the future!
Diamonds on their own are blah.
I’ve always had diamonds, but a few years ago decided to replace most of them with moissanite. It is much prettier to me. I love sparkly things! I have noticed that since I bought my moissanite about 5 years ago, the prices have nearly tripled. I was lucky and got in on it before most people found out about it.
Add me to the diamonds are over rated, over hyped and over priced group.
Opals, lapis and my newest favorite, tanzanite.
To be fair about it, a diamond of middling or better quality most certainly does not look like a chunk of glass. Diamonds offer extreme hardness and reasonable physical toughness; they do cleave along lattice planes but it takes a concerted blow in the right direction. IIRC there’s a whole profession within the diamond trade of people who do this. They don’t cut diamonds into finished stones, and they don’t make jewelry–they just sit all day looking at rough diamond crystals to figure out where the planes are inside, and then cleaving them with little mallets and wedges.
Hardness in a stone is usually an indicator of its surface reflectivity, which is called the luster, and the internal dispersion is a measure of how widely a ray of white light is split into its constituent colors. The dispersion and luster of diamond far surpass that of any glass. Aquamarine and the other beryls are much closer to glass in those criteria, which is why I was so amazed by that aquamarine.
For the longest time I felt the same way. Diamonds are blah.
Then I needed some colored stones for a project and an artist friend sent me here. All the colors are way cool and since they aren’t what DeBeers is hawking, and not flawless, the prices are much lower.
I ended up using Coffee and Cream colored stones for my project and it was cool to tell people “Oh yeah! Those are Diamonds”. The stones I used were smaller (1/4 carat) than what they seem to have available right now, but they have packets of smaller stones in all different colors.
I’m not referring to this company for any other reason than the nice picture of the different colored stones and I’m sure thee are other wholesalers have just as nice stuff.
I suppose a black diamond is the anti-diamond diamond. Now how is that not cool?
What sweetheart is not going to be impressed with Chocolate Diamonds?
It just opened a door to colored stones I didn’t know existed.
Diamonds are worth anything because of a fantastic PR scheme and monopoly by a few mine owners, the day is fast approaching when scientists can make one indistinguishable from a natural one. I can’t wait.