Coral is a very difficult material to carve. For this reason, cameos of good quality are quite rare. Coral was very popular in the Roman Era, and from late 18th Century to the half of the 19th Century. Because their small size, most of the coral cameos were mounted as bracelet and necklace bockles, on rings and stick pins. Coral cameos of large size (Ie. over 1 inch), enough for to be mounted as brooches, are rare. Of course, coral cameos are carved still today, though most of them are carved from Chinese pink coral. The most precious corals are red (from Mediterranean Sea) and pale pink, so-called "angel skin". But please don't forget that angel skin coral cameos are very rare! Most of the pink cameos we can find are actually carved from pink shell, very often confused with the pink coral.