Jewelry - Fine Jewelry

Generally, fine jewelry refers to jewelry containing precious stones (as opposed to semiprecious), high grade pearls, and/or precious metal. If the term "precious" causes you to visualize a higher price tag, you are right. While the term "fine jewelry" usually connotes a high (higher?) level of craftsmanship, it is not a given. Read descriptions carefully and ask questions.

Precious metals include gold, palladium, platinum, rhodium and silver. Precious stones usually refer to diamond, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, pearl (strictly speaking not a gemstone) and opal. While the term precious in jewelry creates mental links to higher price, remember that supply and demand is the bigger controlling factor. One should familiarize his or her self with tidbits such as "...ruby is the red variety of the species corundum, while any other color of corundum is considered sapphire. Emerald (green), aquamarine (blue), bixbite (red), goshenite (colorless), heliodor (yellow), and morganite (pink) are all varieties of the mineral species beryl." A good place to do this is here.