Simon & Schuster's Guide To Gems And Precious Stones Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
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.
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Touchstone; English Language edition (March 13, 1986)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0671604309
ISBN-13: 978-0671604301
Product Dimensions: 4.5 x 0.7 x 7.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #199,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #57 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Field Guides > Rocks & Minerals #85 in Books > Science & Math > Earth Sciences > Rocks & Minerals #228 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Natural Resources
Went to a gem show and saw that many folks had this book. Made a mistake and bought it here. I had a MUCH MUCH better book titled Gemstones by Cally Hall. The Simon and Schuster book has fascinating sections on how artificial gems are made and such like info (Doesn't include Moissanite.). However, it does not have any info on many many gemstones readily available today, such as Sphene, Sunstone (state gem of Oregon I'm told)and many others. (You can find these in the Simon and Schuster Rocks and Minerals book). If you are only interested in the mainstream gemstones, this book has them. However, as compared to the Cally Hall book, the info is not as well organized nor are the pictures (though mostly very nice) as useful. I will use this as a backup reference book.
I've had this book ever since it was published and found it enormously valuable in identifying gems that I was unfamiliar with. Between this book and the accompanying "Simon & Schuster's Guide to Rocks & Minerals" one has a complete guide to nature's precious gifts of gems. My only critique is that the book needs an update to reflect some of the new semi-precious stones in the market place.
If you're working in the retail field, as I do selling jewellery, it's a straightforward, exciting, easy to understand guide with gorgeous photos. Also tells you how to spot a lower grade version of a gem. Some great museum photos of organic gems such as coral, ivory, etc. and semi-precious stone sculptures that make you appreciate the beauty of the gems. A standard for salespeople and a perfect reference for shopowners.
This is an excellent gem book. It has gorgeous color pictures on every page. Very informative and easy to understand! I give it a four instead of five only because it doesn't cover many of the rarer gems. However, I do recommend it to beginners and hobbyists!
In addition to be a valuable guide for gem identification, this guide has wonderful color photographs, so useful for proper mineral and gem identification. Each gemstone is listed with density (vital for indentification), crystalline structure, light refraction angle (single or double), chemical makeup and hardness. There is an introductory section that is a good reference on mineral properties, a section on gem cutting, and small historical section.My only objection to this book is that it is incomplete; there are a lot of semiprecious stones like gaspeite, for example that are not listed. So, not a complete reference, but a very good one that covers a wide range of information.
Easy to read and fun to use. Photos are excellent and make identification of gems fun and relatively easy. I particularly liked the section on lab gems. I have several beautiful created stones and now I have a much better understanding of how they were made.
and it is a little more technical than the rest (explains things like twinning, establishment of density, calculating specific gravity, cleavage, moh's scale, refractive indices, law of refraction, genesis, cutting, cutting styles etc).it includes gem descriptions in much detail (thou the order in which they are arranged is a mystery to me and really bugs me, as i have to flip and flip until i find what i need).for diamond it includes a table comparing 4 color grading systems used (which is cool).large section on organic gems and synthetics.all in all i see it as a really good (almost) professional level book on gems and precious stones.
This book reads more like a text on gemology than a guidebook to learning about gems found in jewelry. It has an introduction that coldly describes the characteristics of gems, descriptions of the process of gem cutting, drawings of cut gem faceting.The book is arranged by chemical properties, the Moh's scale of hardness and the density. It has illustrations of the gems. It has a section on organics. But, you would need a glossary to understand the text, which the book reduces to four pages. It has an index which reads like a college text's.That is what I think the intended audience is: student or beginning gemologists who need a reference for what they have forgotten and need to find again. A beginning, amateur gemologist would not be able to understand even how the book was organized.I would recommend it only to advanced amateur gemologists of students wanting a reference for what they may forget from time to time. It is on a college reading level.
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