Handbooks: Gemstones: The Clearest Recognition Guide Available (DK Smithsonian Handbook)

I bought this for my 7-yr. old daughter - budding rock hound and naturalist! Like other DK books, the photography is luscious and the layout is casual and very inviting - full of beautiful images. It provides a great overview and history of gemstones and their appeal, where specific stones can be found and appealing photographs of the different cuts of stones. It also provides detailed "specifics" such as structure, composition and hardness. This is a thoroughly engaging book for all ages and it is highly recommended.

This is a great book for a beginner, Very easy to read and understand, Great pictures, and well organized.

Any D.K. book is a good buy. I need information on dealing with jewelry from a realtive's estate. I couldn't have chosen a more useful book. It is well illustrated, and the information is the best. If you are looking for a book helpful in doing projects, especially of a scientific nature. Look in to D. K. books. They have great books to help children learn,

Let's take a look at the value here in this book and overall what I'd rate it. First the packaging...simply placed in a box with air bags around it so when I opened it up all was well...no issues. That was easy! Now the review of the book: Simple with lots of pictures YET, you could read a little deeper and they have everything from a world map and which gems come from where, as well as breakdowns of different clarities of many gems. Overall value: I suppose it was okay. Nothing over the top here, although admittedly I'm difficult to say it's perfect. The book is a little thinner than I expected, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have enough pertinent information listed. Overall I rate this book a B and it's only held back because it wasn't as big as I'd like to have seen and that it could have had even more pictures. Fair product for the money - a little higher than what I would place the value to be. I think this is more of a $9.99 book personally.

This is a very good book. I have been reading through some of it and I like the scientific aspect of this. I use this book in conjunction with The Crystal Bible and it gives a good overview of the gemological process as well as the Stones themselves. I DO wish that there was a more basic section of the type of crystals (Cubic, etc...) as I feel that section was particularly short. But that's nothing Google cannot fix...All in all, a very safe purchase

The photos are excellent. They make comparison with your stones easier.

Rock hounds and jewelry fanciers alike will find this book not only useful but beautiful, illustrated with striking color photos. First come explanations of what a gemstone is, and the meaning of various terms used to describe the characteristics of individual gems. Then come photos and descriptions of each gemstone, including its chemical formula. Some knowledge of chemistry would be useful to a reader, but is by no means necessary.

This is a great resource for finding out more about colored gemstones. It's easy to read and use as a reference. I look forward to referring to it alot.