Art Deco: Jewelry with angular geometric shapes, zigzags, bold, colors, faceted glass in silver a/o chrome.

Art Nouveau: Victorian and Edwardian jewelry characterized by fluid lines, floral and natural motifs, and natural colors.

Baroque: bold, ornate ornamentation.

Cameo: layered stone, usually agate or sea shell with carved figure or scene;
Intaglio: design carved down into a gemstone

Diamond and equivalents: a diamond is a naturally occurring carbon mineral crystallized; graded by the 4 Cs – cut, color, clarity, and carat weight.

Cubic zirconia (CZ): man made gem resembling a diamond.
Moissanite: a natural gemstone nearly as hard but more brilliant than a diamond.
Lab Created Diamond: simulated stone with look, weight, and wear of diamond; 80% less expensive.

Gold jewelry marks: indicates how much 24 karat gold fused with metal alloy in a piece of jewelry. 10K=41.7% pure gold; 14k=58.5% pure gold; 18k=75%. In the U.S., gold jewelry is marked “10K, 14K, 18K, 22K,”etc. European marks are “585” (14K) and “750” (18K).

Gold filled: base metal layered with at least 10K gold and 1/20th of the piece’s weight.

Hallmark: e.g., “925”, “14”K; stamp to attest to a metal’s purity

Marcasite: faceted/rose cut pyrite set in silver or pewter

Silver jewelry marks:
925: (92.5% pure silver) is the standard, with a range of 800 to 950.
FAS: (fused alloy silver) 925 is a high quality metal.
Silver tone: plated or coated with silver over base metal.

Nickel silver: white metal resembling sterling composed of copper, zinc, and nickel.

Vermeil: is silver with gold plating.

Turquoise: gemstone used in jewelry since 200 B.C. Its color is determined by percentage of copper in each stone; deep blue has highest copper content; yellow tint caused by zinc, green has high aluminum percentage.

“Spider”: small gemstone nuggets naturally cemented together;
black spider has pyrite;
yellow spider has iron oxide.