Emerald and Gold Ring

With strong, clean silhouettes and a rainbow of beautiful gemstones, Gee Woods is an exciting jewellery designer breathing new life into classic designs. From modern halo rings using hexagonal cut sapphires, Deco-inspired geometric designs, and a line in killer solitaires, this British brand is going from strength to strength creating bespoke and limited edition engagement ring styles for the modern bride.

Emeralds are a green coloured precious gemstone, and one of the four most desirable gemstones worldwide, alongside diamonds, rubies and sapphires.

Emeralds fall below diamonds, rubies and sapphires in terms of hardness, due to the fact that most emeralds have a high number of inclusions in them - small splits and breakages visible in the stone - so they can shatter quite easily and are considered a fragile gemstone.

As emeralds are usually quite ‘included’ - where there are marks that are clearly visible in the stone - the colour and the clarity are considered to be the most important factor in determining value. So as with all gemstones the colour is king, and tends to determine price, with emeralds it’s also how clear the gemstone is. It’s normal to have a few inclusions in an emerald, so instead it’s important to choose a bright colour that sparkles and glows a deep green. Emeralds too pale will show the inclusions even more, and too dark will appear dull.

It’s also important to set emeralds securely, usually in a bezel setting rather than a claw setting, so the metal goes all the way around the stone, protecting it.

Emerald is traditionally the birthstone of May. View all emerald rings here.

The octagonal cut is extremely similar to an emerald cut, and often very hard to tell the two apart. The main difference is that octagonal cut stones often have eight equal sides, rather than the emerald cut having a predominantly rectangular shape with short ‘corners’ making up eight sides.

Jewellery designers favour an octagonal cut gemstone for being a less common choice, as they have a geometric but classic shape. With a large table (the top, flat part of a gemstone when looking from above) this cut favours clear, coloured gemstones of high quality with few imperfections.

The emerald in the image is 0.9cts in size. 

Gold is a naturally occurring metal with a warm, glowing finish when polished, and remains the most popular choice for engagement rings due to its natural beauty and hard-wearing strength.

Pure 24k gold is naturally a soft material, and considered too soft to create jewellery with, so it is mixed with small amounts of other metals to create an alloy.

As well as increasing the durability of the gold, adding alloys can also change the colour of the gold to produce rose or white gold, for example.

18k yellow gold is made up of 75% pure gold, and 25% alloy, which would usually include silver and copper.

18k rose gold is made up of 75% pure gold, 22.2% copper, and 9.2% silver.

18k white gold is made up of 75% pure gold and 25% palladium or platinum.