Digging into the Classification of Gemstones - Precious and Semi Precious Gemstones

The fascination with gemstones is prevalent since the ancient medieval times. Then several types and categories of gemstones were available and popular across numerous cultures, in some of the best antiquities. That was the tie when actually a trade began to spread across various geographical territories; gemstones began to be traded and then slowly reached every part of the world.

This however was all about its spread, but once it reached all parts of the globe; there was absolutely nobody who didn’t want them. People spent huge sums of money to buy one beautiful gemstone. There was no classification as precious and semi-precious gemstones; this concept was however adopted after a really long time.


In a laymen’s term gemstone is a mineral which can be cut, polished ad can be used as jewelry or some collectable. Here’s however a brief descriptor on the classification of gemstone beads as precious and semi precious gemstones.

This count back to 1970’s when colored gemstones were being categorized as precious stones and semi precious and nobody had an answer as to why this was happening. Children who were curious to learn about semi precious stones were told that Topaz, Garnet, Peridot, Amethyst, Citrine are semi precious stone; but nobody was clear with this question.

Later it was said that every stone has a different tax percentage and this is how these stones were divided; the ones having a higher tax percentage were called precious gemstone and the ones with lower tax percentage were semi precious gemstones.

The nine precious stones are Ruby (Sun), Pearl (Moon), Yellow Sapphire (Jupiter), Emerald (Mercury), Diamond (Venus), Red Coral (Mars), Blue Sapphire (Saturn), Hessonite (Rahu), and Cats' Eye (Ketu). Res of the stones are counted as amongst the category of semi-precious stones. These stones, more often than not, are used as effective substitutes of the precious stones. Also, they have their own distinct divine powers with which they can derive concentrated physical, mental, and spiritual benefits to a person.

At Ratna Sagar Jewels you’ll find a huge collection of precious and semi precious wholesale gemstone beads. Log on to http://www.ratnasagarjewels.com/ to buy gemstones for yourself.