Topaz

TOPAZ is the birthstone for November. Topaz - The Egyptians said that topaz was colored with the golden glow of the sun god. The ancient Greeks believed that it had the power to increase strength. In the 18th and 19th centuries, topaz in rich, reddish cognac colors and vivid pinks were used to grace the jewelry of the Russian Czarinas, hence earning the name of "Imperial Topaz". Topaz sometimes has the amber gold of fine cognac or the blush of a peach, and all the beautiful warm browns and oranges in between. Some rare and exceptional examples are pale pink to a sherry red.

Blue, once the most rare color of topaz, is today the most common, due to a stable enhancement process that turns colorless topaz blue. After the raw topaz is extracted from the earth and cut, it is irradiated to brown and then heated to sky blue. This enhancement process is permanent. Due to the popularity of blue topaz, a new treatment process called 'vapor deposition' has been developed to create additional colors of topaz. In this treatment process, similar to those used by opticians and camera makers to make lens coatings, a thin colored film is bonded on the surface of topaz to create dark blue, red, pink, and green colors or rainbow iridescence. These vapor deposition-enhanced topaz colors must be handled with special care, as the coating can be scratched or abraded. (AGTA) We do not sell these kinds of topaz.