Our Collection

ABC Gems stands for African, Brazilian, & Colombian gemstones. These are the three main gemstone producing regions of the world. We carry calibrated sizes in Emerald along with singles and matched pairs. We have a very fine collection of certified Colombian Emeralds as well. We are also one of the largest distributers of Natural Brazilian Alexandrite in North America.

Alexandrite

Alexandrite dates back to Russian Tsar, Alexander II in the mid 1800‘s. First discovered in Russia, it quickly became the pride of Russia, a gemstone thousands of times more rare than diamonds and changes from blue-green in the day to raspberry red at night. But, by the early 1900’s the entire supply was depleted. It wasn’t until the 1950’s that new supplies were found in Sri Lanka and Brazil. While Sri Lankan Alexandrite is chemically made the same, it is far from the same as Russian. Brazilian Alexandrite is known to be the closest we can find to the Russian material from all those years ago. Unfortunately, now the Brazilian Alexandrite is dwindling, increasingly becoming known as an investment gemstone because of its rarity.

Emerald

The most popular of the colored gemstones, Emerald has been a favorite of royalty for centuries, dating as far back as Cleopatra in Egypt. Known for it’s vivid green color, it is said to bring calmness to the mind and body along with riches, long a favorite of the Hindu and Spanish.

Emerald is hundreds of times more rare than Diamonds. In fact, fine Emeralds have consistently out performed fine Diamonds from an investment stand point. Colombian Emeralds are known to generate the true Emerald green color, while Zambian Emeralds tend to be the cleanest inside.

Sapphire

Sapphire is most popular for his beautiful blue hue. Made famous by Princess Diana’s engagement ring, Sapphire has quickly become a popular color gemstone. It is the 2nd hardest gemstone, behind Diamond, which gives it plenty of uses outside the jewelry industry. Majority of Sapphire are heat treated to bring out the blue color, but when an unheated Sapphire is acquired it demands large sums of money because of how rare it is. While our collection of Sapphire is small compared to our Alexandrite and Emerald, they are one of our favorites and we carefully pick beautiful Sapphire to carry in our inventory, both heated and non-heated.