Pick the stone first, then a cross or a charm, then the size and whether a chain comes
Choose the stone before the design. Sapphire is the safe pick for daily wear, hard enough to shrug off knocks, and it is the stone we carry most, in blue, pink, red and green. For a gift with meaning, make it a gemstone cross, half of the pieces here. Then read the millimeters and the grams, and look for set or necklace in the title, because most come without a chain.
The stone: sapphire, emerald, ruby and opal pendants, and her birthstone
Take sapphire for a pendant she will wear every day. It rates 9 on the hardness scale, second only to diamond. It is also the stone we stock most, in blue, pink, red, green and yellow. A ruby is the same mineral in red. Emerald is softer and often carries tiny marks inside, so wear it with care. Opal and pearl scratch easily, so give them gentle wear. For a birthstone, September is sapphire, July ruby, May emerald and October opal. The gemstone necklaces guide rates every stone.
The design: a gemstone cross pendant, a heart, a charm or an eagle claw
Start with a cross if you are unsure. Crosses make up half the pieces, and apart from the claws they sold best in the year. The mini sapphire crosses are half an inch wide and weigh about 1.5 grams. The two-row princess cut crosses are fuller at 0.8 by 1.25 inches. Each carries 4.4 carats of sapphire or more. Hearts, animals from a lion to an owl, and fruit charms make up most of the rest. The two eagle claws hold a tiger's eye or an opal in silver talons, and together they sold more in the year than everything else here.
Size and the chain: gemstone pendant sizes, and necklace sets
Go by the millimeters. The middle piece is about 20 mm wide and 32 mm long. It weighs around 6 grams, light enough for a fine chain. Three pieces in four come as the pendant alone. Most pieces sold with a chain say so in the title, as a set, chain or necklace. The pendant sets mostly let you pick the chain length, 18 to 24 inches. Take 18 when you cannot ask her, since it rests near the collarbone. The largest silver crosses weigh about 17 grams, so hang them on a sturdier chain. Ask us which chain a set rides on.
Gold or silver: 14K gold or 925 silver gemstone pendants
Choose 14K gold when she means to keep the pendant on. Four in five here are gold, mostly 14K with a smaller 10K shelf. Nearly every gold one lets you pick yellow, white or rose from the menu. White gold sharpens a blue or green stone. Yellow gold flatters reds and pinks. Silver is the other fifth, led by the claws and the bigger crosses. Silver tarnishes, so polish it now and then, keeping the cloth off opal.
Grown or mined: natural or lab-grown gemstones and diamonds
Ask before you pay. Few listings state where the colored stone began, in the ground or in a lab, though a handful say natural and one ruby heart says synthetic. Ten pieces, the claws among them, carry lab-grown diamonds. Natural diamonds sit on 39. A grown sapphire wears exactly like a mined one. The mined stone is simply rarer. Name the pendant in the live chat, or call or text 212-872-9692 from 10 AM ET, and we will check the stone for you.