Buying loose stones

Being an avid collector of colored stones can be exhilarating, exhausting and expensive, but that feeling you get when you see the perfect stone in that white fluffy gem box will be well worth the search.

You may notice throughout my posts that I only refer to loose stones and not pre-made jewelry. I don’t knock pre-made colored stone jewelry at all, and sometimes you can find a perfect ring/necklace/earrings/stone combo and all of your work is done for you, but if you truly want a quality piece, you have to know what you’re getting and who you’re getting it from. There are definitely vendors out there that you can trust to give you quality pre-made pieces, but if you don’t know the vendor or trust its source, you could be spending a ton of money on a heavily treated or even synthetic stone. And as you learn more, I promise you’ll become quite snobby about colored stones and those words will become 4-letter words in your mind.

Often times folks will have oodles and oodles of loose stones and never set them. Sometimes they’re just fun to look at. I mean, look at what I have in my purse right now.

I love being able to pull them out at lunch and stare at them, or bring one out for a friend to show them how spectacular a type of stone can be. I may never set these, and honestly it’s OK. I love them for their rarity and color, and honestly, I don’t have enough fingers to set them all anyway.

However there is the random stone that you may have been searching for for what feels like an eternity and have finally found. That’s the one that you want set and that’s the one that your friends will comment on and love right along with you. When you find your holy grail, you’ll know it, and you’ll love it.

I hope that I can help you learn to love every stone for its rarity, the millions of years its taken to get to you, the love that’s been put into its cutting, its size, the hours you’ve spent learning about it and the luck you feel when you finally find what you love and have it in your hand (or purse).