Men's Emerald Rings

An emerald in a men's ring asks more of the stone than almost any other setting. It will be knocked against desks, door handles and steering wheels, and emerald is not a hard stone — it sits around 7.5 to 8 on the Mohs scale, but its natural inclusions make it more brittle than that number suggests. Every ring here has been built with that in mind, which is why you'll see heavy bezels and protected shoulders rather than exposed corners.

Why Colombian emeralds

Our family has traded Colombian emeralds for four generations. That isn't a marketing line — it means we buy closer to origin than most Australian retailers, and we know what we're looking at when a parcel arrives.

Colombian material is prized for a particular quality of green: slightly bluish, highly saturated, and lit from within rather than looking flat or grey. Emeralds from other origins can be beautiful, but the Colombian colour is what most people picture when they think of an emerald. What separates a good one from a merely green one is saturation, the character of the inclusions — the jardin — and how much oil the stone has taken.

On oil and treatment

Almost every emerald on the market has been oiled. It's an accepted, centuries-old practice that fills surface-reaching fissures and improves clarity. What matters is the degree: minor, moderate or significant. We tell you which, on every stone. A heavily oiled emerald is not necessarily a bad buy, but you should know what you're paying for, and the price should reflect it.

We don't sell lab-created emeralds or treat synthetic material as natural.

Seeing the stone

Photographs are unreliable with emeralds. Colour shifts noticeably between daylight, shopfront lighting and a phone screen, and no image conveys how a stone reads on a hand. We're at Shop 3, 82 King Street in the Perth CBD — come in and look, or call 1300 551 562 to arrange a time.

If none of these are right, we also set loose Colombian emeralds into custom men's rings.