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PRIMARY: PERIDOT - "The stone of warmth, friendliness, and happiness"

Peridot, the primary August birthstone, is a semi-precious gemstone that reaches a hardness level between 6.5 and 7.0 on Moh's scale. Peridot is unusual among gemstones in that it only comes in one color: green and the tint only varies slightly, from bright yellow-green to olive-green.

Peridot is a very old gemstone, so ancient that it can be found in Egyptian jewelry from the early 2nd millennium B.C. Back then, they used stones that came from a deposit on a small volcanic island in the Red Sea, some 45 miles off the Egyptian coast, which was not rediscovered until about 1900!

Today small peridots are plentiful and inexpensive, but their value rises rapidly as the size increases, for two reasons. First, peridot often has carbon inclusions, so it is hard to find large clear stones, and second, it cracks easily, meaning some stones are ruined during the cutting process.