Be it for engagements or for style, the classic emerald has been a staple of jewelry for centuries. Often used to denote status in aristocratic societies, the emerald can come in a range of different configurations, from necklace to broach, and in different metals, from silver to gold. Nothing beats gold rings with emerald stone.
Nowadays, as they adorn the right pinky finger, emerald stone rings are seen as a symbol of luck. The lush green can also symbolize new beginnings and when used to propose, emerald rings are a symbol of new beginnings and hope for the future. If you’re environmentally conscious, the emerald ring is the perfect reminder of the natural beauty of nature. This stems from the mossy look of the gem’s inclusions, which is one of the most defining features of the emerald, also known as its Jardin, or garden.
Out of the beryl family of gemstones, the emerald is by far the most valuable. You can find emerald mines all over the world, so the supply is never too low. What is rare for this vibrant green gem, is the availability of flawless and large stones. In fact, many emeralds are prized for their impurities as it gives the gem a beautiful internal pattern.
Whether you’re buying emerald rings for women or men, Malleable offers some of the best ethical jewelry on the market. Our range of recycled gems and metals is put to the best use to minimize our impact on the planet and the markets we source our materials. If you’re looking for the best emerald ring Canada has to offer, or if you want to touch up your old family heirloom, Malleable has you covered.
The four Cs in real emerald rings
For those who are aware of the 4 Cs, you shouldn’t skip this section yet. Although each of the Cs still has the same meaning, their implication changes depending on the gemstone. Your knowledge of diamonds won’t help you as much when it comes to picking green emerald rings.
Four criteria go into pricing emerald and gold rings. The most defining characteristics of an emerald are the ones that you cannot control. This is the colour and the clarity. Malleable uses the 4 Cs as criteria when we help you craft your gold and emerald rings.
These criteria are The number of impurities in your emerald, or its Clarity; The Colour of the emerald; Its Carat weight; And the way you want your stone Cut. If you have any trouble picking your jewels, remember that Malleable is available to answer your questions online.
Colour
Buying an emerald is much less technical than buying a diamond. Diamonds are popularised based on how clear and large they are, while emeralds are loved for their colour. That’s why we’ll be looking at the most important part of an emerald first.
There are three subcategories when it comes to measuring the colour of gems.
One such category is saturation. This measures how intense the colour of your emerald is. Not to be confused with Clarity, which measures the number of imperfections there are in a gem. Emerald rings tend to be more expensive if their gem is a vivid green colour. As a general rule, saturation trumps the other two aspects of an emerald’s colour.
Hue is the second category that measures a gem’s colour. Emeralds can come in either a yellowish-green or a bluish-green hue. The colour change depends on the composition of minerals in the ground that which the emerald is formed. In a sense, the colour differs depending on what part of the world the emerald is mined from, and because of this, some jewellers try to charge you extra depending on the mine. The most common hue is a bluish-green emerald, but the most prized emeralds are pure green.
The last category is the darkness of the emerald. Its tone, if you will. Dark tones are very popular with emeralds since it makes the green colour stand out more. Dark tones are also the most expensive to choose from. But even a lighter emerald can outclass a dark one if its saturation is too dull.
Clarity
Flawlessly clear emeralds are less common than other stones. Although this does raise the price significantly, it doesn’t detract from the beauty of a flawed emerald. Inclusions don’t detract much from the colour and aesthetic of the stone. In fact, these imperfections are desirable to an extent.
Inclusions are naturally formed imperfections in a gem. In emeralds, they form lovely patterns, which the trade refers to as the gem’s Jardin, or garden. This is because the cloudy green looks like a lush garden.
That said, if an emerald has no inclusions visible to the naked eye, it is considered flawless and will fetch a high price. In fact, emeralds without inclusions are so rare that they can command much higher prices than even diamonds.
Unlike diamonds, you should be able to see most inclusions in an emerald with the naked eye. An emerald with no inclusions in it is either cause for celebration or concern. Since the vast majority of emeralds have several inclusions in them, a completely pure emerald is very rare. However, it can also be a sign of the gem being fake.
Emeralds are far more fragile than diamonds. What this means for the gem is that surface-level inclusions increase the chances of your green emerald ring chipping. Or worse, cracking.
Cut
This is arguably the most important part of designing any piece of jewelry. When
you have your emerald cut, you are not just changing the shape. Cutting an emerald fundamentally changes the way light passes through it and the structural integrity of the gem. Our jewelry designers can darken or brighten your emerald’s hue by adapting small aspects of the specific cut. So keep the other 3 Cs in mind when you decide on your cut.
A special cut was designed for the emerald to boost its unique qualities. The emerald cut is an elegant square shape where the sides are cut into “steps” to help increase its strength.
Emeralds are not the strongest of stones because of how many impurities they normally form. This is what the emerald cut was designed for. The emerald cut protects against damage through its stepped facets which strengthen the vulnerable corners of the cut. It also provides a safe place for the prongs of your gold ring.
Oval emerald rings are far more expensive because of the cut alone. Since emeralds are so delicate compared to diamonds, many shapes tend to be very expensive for this gem. The reason behind this is that a lot of the rough gem needs to be trimmed down to get the shape right.
Carat
There is a sudden increase in value when you start to look at large emeralds. The gem isn’t very dense and it takes a lot of effort to mine them out at larger sizes. On the other hand, this also means that a 1-carat emerald will be larger than a 1-carat diamond. If you’re looking to maximize your stone size per carat, then the emerald is a definite win.
One-carat emeralds are obscenely expensive. This is because it takes a lot of effort to dig out an emerald that big and cut it down to that size.
Ethically sourced round diamond earrings
Malleable Jewellers tries our best to reuse as much of the materials we source to
make your gold and emerald rings. Our goal is to minimize the impact our business has on the environment and that means giving old metals and gems a second chance. In our attempts to keep materials out of waste streams, we trade between different jewelry practices and even buy gold from customers to a certain extent.
Consider upcycling your old jewelry for the next addition to your jewelry box. If you have any old rings or jewels that you don’t wear anymore, then send them to us to incorporate them into your emerald and gold rings. All at a much better cost to both yourself and the environment.
Malleable makes use of a certified fair trade network to source conflict-free jewelry. What this means is that we ensure our metals come from legal and reputable mines. This stretches to our gemstones as well.
Where do the materials come from?
Malleable uses a mixture of recycling techniques to craft your jewelry. In rare cases, we need to buy more gold, we make use of mines and suppliers that are certified by the Fairmined scheme.
Recycling
Malleable makes use of a host of environmentally friendly business practices when crafting your jewelry and in other parts of our business as well. You are welcome to take part in the process as well! Our packaging is completely recyclable and compostable for your convenience. Or, you can receive a $5 gift card for returning our packaging or for declining packaging entirely.
Malleable makes use of a range of jewelry especially when it comes to our recycled gemstones. We offer a variety of flawless gems and those with several inclusions to best cover your budget.
As for the gold and other precious metals we use at Malleable, we try our best to ensure none of our materials are unethically sourced. However, when it comes to recycled materials, you can't always guarantee where these metals came from originally.
What Malleable can guarantee is that by using recycled metals, you can rest assured that there is less harm done to the environment than when even the most ethical mine digs the metals out of the ground.
Fairmined gold
Fairmined gold is an assurance that your gold rings with emerald stone are sourced through fair trade and environmentally friendly business practices. Fairmined is a standard by which many small-scale mines all over the world are held. It ensures that the environment they are working in is protected. Jewelry companies can also be certified to sell Fairmined gold.
The first criteria a mine is judged by before it can be certified as Fairmined is its environmental standards. A Fairmined mine has to be small in scale to ensure it has as little impact on the earth as possible. These mines must prove that they do not affect the water supplies in the area they are mining in. This means they have to safely handle the chemicals they use for mining, or better yet, not use any chemicals for mining in the first place.
The mine must also prove it is helping the community it is based in or near. This can range from ensuring gender equality among its workers to proving the mine is in no way linked to conflict situations or child labour. The mine has to help its community develop in positive circumstances.
This feeds into the third criteria of Farimined: providing safe working conditions. This means health and safety conditions are met and adhered to. This also stretches to the miners’ legal rights to unionize.
Fairmined also helps small-scale mines in legal matters. By ensuring legal land claims, the mine can be ensured they receive a guaranteed minimum price for their yield. Fairmined goes so far as to help mines build trade relationships in the industry to help strengthen their organization.
Finally
We at Malleable pride ourselves on delivering a quality product regardless of the materials we need to work with. Your satisfaction is what we strive towards, which is why the initial planning phase of your emerald and gold rings is so important.
Regardless of whether we are working with recycled materials, newly sourced materials or if we are working with your old jewelry, our goal is to deliver a quality product that exceeds expectations. So see for yourself why Malleable has some of the best ethically sourced emerald rings in Canada.
