The Jeweler's Directory of Gemstones: A Complete Guide to Appraising and Using Precious Stones From Cut and Color to Shape and Settings 
For goldsmiths, collectors, jewelry-makers, investors, retailers and consumers.
The trade of gemstones is a highly specialized and often secretive business. Using The Jeweler's Directory of Gemstones, written by an expert gemstone dealer and designer, will provide any consumer with the insider knowledge needed to make accurate judgments of gemstones, to recognize low- and high-quality stones, and to make a good buy rather than a bad one.
Each full-color spread is packed with concise text, annotated drawings and beautiful photographs, including a showcase of virtuoso jewelry designs. Great for informed consumers, the book includes:
Sources and grading Traditional and modern settings Cutting and faceting Designing a special setting Gemstone groups Appraising, buying and handling gemstones Diamond types and pearls Spotting synthetics and fakes.Here is a sampling of the practical insider information in this book:
Using a loupe to examine a stone Understanding laser cutting and carving Identifying synthetic diamonds Buying at gem fairs and from dealers Cleaning and storing stones.No other book has this kind expert advice -- up-to-date, clearly presented and fully illustrated -- on evaluating and using gemstones.
Reviews
As a jewelry artist, I've always wanted to add some gemstone books to my huge jewelry-related book collection, but all I could ever find were ones that seemed to be written only for gemstone collectors & science nerds--not that there's ANYTHING bad about stone collectors OR science nerds--it was just that these books never really focused much (if at all) on the jewelry-related aspect of gemstones!!
This book definitely fills that huge (and what you'd think would be obvious) void that all those other books seem to have missed.
I am hoping the book will be revised in the future to include more stones, and maybe fix a few things that were left out..
For example: in the list of U.S. locations where Tourmaline mines exist, Maine was left out!! :-o
But the flaws I see in this book are very minor--overall I am very satisfied with it, and I am very thankful to Judith Crowe for finally making the book that I was searching for!! :-)