Coral Gemstones and Coral Jewelry
Coral makes jewelry of a very special fascinating charm: the perfect embodiment of mankind’s yearning for summer, sun and faraway seas. Like pearls, Corals also belong to the organic jewellery material. For ages now Coral has been used as jewellery and worshipped as a protective charm. Nowadays Coral is still used as a talisman in many cultures in order to ward off evil spirits. The modern teachings of healing with gemstones appreciate Coral for its positive effects. Coral is reported to soothe fears and tensions, and to encourage positive ways of living together.
The name as such, however, is still puzzling to linguists. Some are convinced that the Greek word „koraillon“ is the root, as this signifies the hard and calcareous skeleton of the Coral animal. Another possible source is “kura-halos”, meaning “mermaid”, and after all, the fine Coral branches sometimes remind us of the shape of people. Other experts favour the theory that the word comes from Hebrew, “goral”, the name for the stones used to cast an oracle, and in fact the Coral branches were used for casting oracles in former times in Palestine, Asia Minor and the around the Mediterranean.
Corals live in depths between three to three thousand metres in the seas around Japan, Taiwan and the Malayan Archipelago, in the Red Sea, the Biscayan Gulf and around the Canary Islands, but also in north-eastern Australia and off the Midway Islands. In the Mediterranean there are Coral reefs all around the Tyrrhenian Sea, along the coastline of Sardinia and also off the shores of Tunisia and Algeria, Yugoslavia and Turkey.
When talking about Coral, the Coral reefs of the Pacific Ocean or of Australia are the first images which come to mind – reefs, banks, atolls which are some of Nature’s most impressive miracles of beauty. But it is not these protected kinds of Coral which we are taking a closer look at here. For jewellery purposes, only Corals of the species e.g. “Corallium rubrum“ or “Corallium japonicum“ are being used.
Corals need not necessarily be red, although the name „Coral“ denotes a pinkish-red colour. Nature creates Coral in a wide range of shades and hues from red and white and blue to brown and black. Most coveted are the red shades, ranging from palest petal pink via salmon to deep velvety red. The height of fashion are currently black Coral and golden Coral, and extremely rare the blue variant. Especially valuable is also the white Coral with a slight blush of pink, the so-called “Angelskin Coral”. Other famous specimen are the deeply satiated red Japanese “Moro Coral”, pale pink “Boke” and the red “Sardena”.
Corals are not too sensitive, but with their hardness of only 3.5 they are considerably softer than any other gemstone material. Their beauty will suffer from inappropriate treatment. Cosmetic products, hot water and bright daylight are detrimental to their beauty. Coral jewellery should be carefully stored and be cleaned from time to time with a soft, wet cloth. Should the surface be scratched in spite of all care, a jeweller will be able to polish it up.
Lighter in weight and less expensive than the Fine Coral are Root and Foam Coral. Root Corals are in fact a special Coral species – no root as such, but rather a special Coral bush. It is sometimes mixed up with Foam Coral. The latter, however, are those parts of Japanese Moro Coral which are embedded in sand or mud, and which are that part in-between the Coral foot and the Coral stem. This Foam Coral has been in the market for a long time, has a higher weight than Root Coral and is also somewhat higher priced. Both kinds are supplied in large quantities by China and Japan. Because of their size and relatively low weight they are popular wherever colour and volume are in demand at low prices.
