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Antiques & Collectables

Glossary of antique and collectable terms

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G

Term Definition
Gablonz

Gablonz (Jablonec nad Nisou) is a city in the Czech Republic, in Bohemia, that is a centre of jewellery making. Before World War II, Gablonz was a centre of high-quality glass-blowing, bead-making, and other costume-jewellery related products.

Gadrooning

Continuous convex curves or reeding on metalwork, furniture and ceramics, that is used to create a border or edging on a curved surface such as a rim.

It is a repetitive pattern of slanting lobes and flutes originally derived from the knuckles of a clenched fist.

Gadrooning Gadrooning Gadrooning

Gagate

Gagate, popularly known as jet, is fossilized coal. It is a hard, lustrous black stone that was used in mourning jewellery during the Victorian era, especially after Queen Victoria's husband died and she went into a long-lasting mourning, affecting fashion.

Jet is frequently cabochon cut.

Jet leaves a brown streak. When burnt with a red-hot needle, jet smells like coal Black glass and plastics are often used to imitate jet (glass is much heavier and harder than jet) - jet is warm to the touch.

Gagate has been mined near Whitby,on the Yorkshire coast of England, since prehistoric times. It is also found in Spain. France, Germany, and Russia, but these other sources are said to be inferior to the harder, more elastic Whitby jet.

Jet or gagate has a hardness of 2.5-4 (quite soft) and a specific gravity of 1.30-1.35 (it is relatively lightweight)

Gagate Gagate Gagate

Gahnospinel

Gahnospinel is a rare blue spinel stone that is high in zinc and magnesium. It can only be distinguished from most spinel by its high specific gravity and high refractive index.

Gahnospinel has a hardness of 8, a specific gravity of 3.97. Its chemical formula is (Mg, Zn)Al2O4.

Gahnospinel

Gallery

A gallery is a strip of metal that is perforated with a decorative pattern.

Open galleries can be adapted by jewellers to use as a ready-made claw setting for gemstones

Garnet

Garnets are any of a group of semi-precious silicate stones that range in colour from red to green (garnets occur in all colours but blue).

Some garnets used as gemstones include pyrope (the deep red garnet), almandine, spessartine, grossular, the iron-aluminium dark red garnet (also known as the carbuncle stone), Uvarovite (rare), and the lustrous Andradite (which includes the valuable green demantoid garnet, Topazolite , and Melanite).

Red garnet is the birthstone for January.

Garnet has a hardness of 6-8 and a specific gravity of 3.5 - 4.3

Types of Garnet:
• Grossular - Colorless, orange, yellow, pink, or brown
• Pyrope - Colorless, pink, or red
• Pyrope Almadine - Red-orange to red-purple
• Almandine spessartine - Red-orange
• Chrome pyrope - Orange-red
• Almandine - Orange-red to purple-red
• Hessonite - Yellow-orange to red
• Spessartine - Yellow-orange
• Topazolite - Yellow to orange-yellow
• Malaia - Yellow to red-orange to brown
• Andradite - Yellow-green to orange-yellow to black
• Demantoid - Green to yellow green andradite
• Tsavorite - Green to yellow-green
• Pyrope-Spessartine - Green-yellow to purple
• Color-change garnet - Blue green in sunlight; purple-red in incandescent light
• Transvaal "jade" - Bright green grossular garnet
• Uvarovite - Emerald green
• Grape - purple
• Rhodolite - Purple-red
• Xalostocite - Pink grossular garnet

Garnet Garnet

Garniture

Garniture is a set of ornaments for the chimneypiece. In the late 1600’s it referred to porcelain vases. Later they could be silver or bronze. Clocks flanked by matching candlesticks were popular in the 1700/s and 1800’s.

Garniture

Gaspeite

Gaspeite is a pale green to apple-green semi-precious gemstone that often has brown inclusions of its host rock. Gaspeite is translucent to opaque.

Gaspeite is Nickel Magnesium Iron Carbonate; its chemical formula is (Ni, Mg, Fe)CO3.

This beautiful stone has only recently been used in jewellery, and is often set in silver.

This stone is found in Gaspe Peninsula, Quebec, Canada (where it was originally found and from which it derives its name) and Kambalda and Widgie Mooltha, Western Australia, Australia.

Gaspeite has a hardness of 4.5 - 5, and a specific gravity of 3.7

Gaspeite Gaspeite Gaspeite

Gemstone

A gemstone, also called a precious stone, is a mineral that is valuable, rare and often beautiful. A few organic materials, like amber, coral and pearls are also considered gemstones

Although some gems can be identified by their colour or hardness, many need technical examination to establish authenticity. Among the factors crucial in establishing the value of a stone are its carat weight, colour, brilliance, and cut.

The colour of a gemstone depends on the natural impurities dispersed throughout the stone. Colour is the least dependable means of identification, as many types of stone exist in a range of colours, and some stones are heat treated to improve their colour.

Most natural gemstones have inclusions, which reduce their brilliance; these will be removed as far as possible, by a gem cutter. Synthetic stones and paste and glass imitations, may be identified by their lack of inclusions, although paste will sometimes contain bubbles.

Gemstones are cut to enhance their clarity and brilliance, as the different facets of a cut stone alter the amount of refracted light escaping from it. There are many different styles of cut: the brilliant cut, rose cut, old cut, and eight cut are among the most common. Heavily flawed stones are usually cabouchon-cut giving an unfaceted but polished surface.

Gemstone

Geode

A geode is a rock whose crystal-filled interior can be hollow or filled. The crystals that form within the mineral crust of the geode is called druze. From the outside, geodes look like rounded, but otherwise ordinary rocks

Geode Geode

German Silver

German silver, also know as nickel silver, is an alloy consisting of mostly copper (roughly 60 percent), and approximately 20 percent nickel, and around 20 percent zinc.

When approximately 5 percent tin is added, the alloy is called alpaca.

There is no silver at all in German silver.

This alloy was invented around 1860 in Germany as a silver substitute.

See also Alpaca and Nickel Silver

Gilding

Process of applying a gold finish to silver or electroplated object

Gilding Gilding

Gimmel Ring

A gimmel ring is a double ring that was designed during the Renaissance. It consists of two or more interlocking rings.

A gimmel ring symbolizes the union of two people

Gimmel Ring Gimmel Ring Gimmel Ring

Girandole

A girandole is a kind of ear ring or brooch in which three pearls, stones or pendants hang from a large stone.

The central drop is usually larger than the other pendants

Girandole Girandole

Girdle

The girdle is the widest perimeter of a gemstone

Givre Beads

Givre beads are beads made of transparent glass fused around a translucent core. Givre means frost in French

Givre Beads Givre Beads

Glass

Glass is often used in jewellery, as beads, faceted or spherical, rhinestones and as poured glass

Glass Paste

Glass paste, also known as pate de verre, is glass that is ground into a paste, put into a mould, and then melted.

The final piece is an opaque, dense glass with a frosted surface

Glaze

Hard shiny layer on the surface of a fired ceramic

Glyptography

Glyptography is the art of engraving gemstones, making intaglio and cameos.

Stones are engraved using grindstones with powdered emery or diamond as an abrasive

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