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jewelry glossary

Antique jewelry glossary

Welcome to our extensive antique jewelry glossary with around 1,500 jewelry related entries.If you feel you are missing an explanation, feel free to let us know and we will add it.

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Serpentine

A type of rock that, owing to its origin from the decomposition of various constituent minerals, varies considerably in appearance and characteristics. The most valuable varieties are of shades of green, resembling and sometimes sold as the nephrite variety of jade; and some bear misnomers, e.g. Korean jade and new jade. Often it is mottled with reddish-brown, hence its name. It is fairly soft, so that it has been used for carving cameos and intaglios.

A harder variety is bowenite, which is more used in jewelry than are the other varieties, e.g. Williansite, Antigorite, Retinalite. Massive rocks of serpentine include several varieties of marble, and fibrous serpentine (chrysotile) is a source of asbestos.

From: An Illustrated Dictionary of Jewelry, autor: Harold Newman, publishers: Thames and Hudson

Jewelry Glossary

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