Yellow Onyx: The Case for Vintage
Yellow Onyx is a natural gemstone that's been used in jewelry making, and carvings since ancient times and across many cultures where natural onyx was found including Greece, Canada, Brazil, Eastern Europe, Uruguay, Mexico etc.
It has been long believed that onyx holds the power to absorb negative feelings and emotions and in turn provide steadfastness, self control, and clarity, promoting good decision making, stamina, and comfort.
Onyx has also been credited with banishing grief, and inviting happiness and good fortune to a home.
The natural marbling and hand carvings ensure that no two pieces are ever identical, and with their striking beauty, and believed benefits it is not surprising that onyx carvings and jewels have adorned people throughout the world dating as far back as ancient Egypt.
Regardless of where one stands on spirituality and the healing power of gemstones and crystals, there's no arguing the timelessness of the soft warm neutral tones that are sculpted in the hard, cold, smooth texture of the stone, and oozing with character of pieces that were meticulously worked by the hands of an artisan and have made their way through the world, forever untelling their secrets. Anything more, is simply added value.
As far as value goes, pound for pound, it is actually almost always cheaper for the consumer to buy vintage gemstones than newly mined and imported ones. Consider purchasing a big single gemstone, comparable in size to vintage goods carved out of gemstones, some forty, fifty, and more years ago by artisans. It is likely cheaper to buy the vintage than new at wholesale prices by the oz. It is, however, not as easy to come by, and not necessarily marketed as gemstones, despite the fact that they are precisely that. And more. In a world of 3D printers and mass production, it's easy to forget the skill, labour, and creativity that went into crafting hand made goods, which simply do not exist anymore.
Vintage carvings are considered used goods and not new products, which for some may be viewed as a fact that brings down their value, however, as a natural stone used for decorative purposes, barring the carving to be in anyway offensive, at face value, it seems logical that an "old" stone would equate and possibly surpass the "new" one in terms of quality, wear, and beauty, and certainly in value if it came at no additional damage done to the environment by mining, manufacturing, and shipping natural stoneware, (quote on quote on old and new, because it's natural stone, it's like stone age old whichever way you look at it...)
In summary, vintage gemstones and crystal carvings are packed with personality, all the healing offers of the stone they're made of, loads of happy earth karma, and are often found at a much better value. All the reasons that make them winners when it comes to investing in pieces and decorating with intention.
