From the light blue of the sky to the deep blue of the sea, aquamarines glimmer over an astonishingly beautiful range of mainly light blue colours. Aquamarine is a enchantingly beautiful gemstone. Women the world over love it for its subtle blue shades which can harmonize almost any skin or eye colour, and creative gemstone designers are inspired by it as they are by hardly any other gem, which enables them to create new artistic cuts again and again.

Its light blue arouses feelings of compassion, conviction, harmony and friendship. Good feelings. Feelings which are based on support and which prove their worth in lasting relationships. The blue of aquamarine is a heavenly, eternal colour, because it is the colour of the sky. However, aquamarine blue is also the colour of water with its life-giving force. And aquamarine really does seem to have captured the clear blue of the oceans. No wonder, when you contemplate that according to the chronicle it originated in the treasure chest of fabulous mermaids, and has, since ancient times, been regarded as the sailors' lucky stone. Its name is imitative from the Latin aqua (water) and mare (sea). It is said that its strengths are developed to their best benefit when it is placed in water which is bathed in sunlight. However, it is surely better still to wear aquamarine, since according to the old traditions this promises a happy marriage and is said to bring the woman who wears it joy and wealth into the arrangement. An ideal gem, not only for loving and married couples.

Aquamarine is one of our most prevalent and best-known gemstones, and distinguishes itself by many good virtues. It is almost as popular as the classics: ruby, sapphire and emerald. In fact it is associated to the emerald, both belonging to the beryl family. The colour of aquamarine, however, is usually more even than that of the emerald. Much more often than its famous green cousin, aquamarine is almost exclusively free of inclusions. Aquamarine has good stiffness (7_ to 8 on the Mohs scale) and a magnificent glisten. That stiffness makes it very tough and protects it to a large amount from scratches. Iron is the substance which gives aquamarine its colour, a colour which ranges from an almost imperceptible pale blue to a strong sea-blue. The more deep the colour of an aquamarine, the more value it is. Some aquamarines have a light, greenish glisten; that too is a characteristic feature. However, it is a pure, clear blue that continues to exemplify the aquamarine, because it brings out so well the flawless transparency and superb shine of this gemstone.

The brilliant blue of this noble beryl is making more and more friends. The variety of colour nuances of aquamarine have harmonious names: the rare, intense blue aquamarines from the Santa Maria de Itabira mine in Brazil, which make every gemstone lover's heart beat faster, are called 'Santa Maria'. Similar nuances come from a few gemstone mines in Africa, particularly Mozambique. To help differentiate them from the Brazilian ones, these aquamarines have been given the name 'Santa Maria Africana'. The 'Espirito Santo' colour of aquamarines from the Brazilian state of that name is of a blue that is not quite so concentrated. Yet other qualities are personified in the stones from Fortaleza and Marambaia. One beautiful aquamarine colour was named after the Brazilian beauty queen of 1954, and has the name 'Martha Rocha'.

It can be seen from the names of aquamarine colours just how important Brazil is among the countries where aquamarine is found. Most of the raw crystals for the world market come from the gemstone mines of that large South American country. Every now and then, large aquamarine crystals of perfect transparency are also found with a glorious colour, a amalgamation which is very unusual in gemstones. And very seldom, shockingly large aquamarine crystals come to light in Brazil, such as the crystal of 110.5 Kg found in 1910 in Marambaia/Minas Gerais, or for example the 'Dom Pedro', weighing 26 Kg and cut in Idar-Oberstein in 1992 by the gemstone designer Bernd Munsteiner, the largest aquamarine ever to have been cut. However, aquamarines are also found in other countries, for example Nigeria, Zambia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Afghanistan and Pakistan.