The value of an emerald, first of all, is determined by its color and only then by its cut and carat. Emeralds come in a variety of shades, depending on where they were mined. The most expensive, Colombian, are bright green with a light blue. Of course, it affects the price of the emerald and its origin, whether it is natural or grown. Artificial emeralds are a skillful counterfeit, which has a place in jewelry, but not in jewelry.
Instructions
Step 1
Assess the shade of the stone. Both natural and laboratory-produced emeralds range from pale green to deep green. Stones with a pronounced yellowish tint are not emeralds, but most likely peridots or green garnets.
Step 2
Pay attention to any flashes that appear in the stone. The sparkles, which gemologists call dispersion, have different intensities for each gem. The diamond is famous for its "game". Natural emeralds have low dispersion and should give little fire. The shining green stones are probably cubic zirconia.
Step 3
Check the edges of the stone. Crooks sometimes make a "sandwich" from a thin cut of natural emerald, sandwiched between two pieces of crystal, gluing it all together with dark green epoxy resin. If you look at the stone from the side and distinguish between such layers, the emerald is a clear fake.
Step 4
Examine the stone under a strong magnifying glass. If its edges seem to be worn out, it is most likely not an emerald, but ordinary thick glass. Natural and farmed emeralds have a hardness of 7.5 to 8 on the Mohs scale. This is, of course, less than diamond (10 on the Mohs scale), but much more than glass (5, 5 on the Mohs scale). Glass edges wear out quickly, while the edges of an emerald remain precisely faceted for a long time.
Step 5
With the naked eye, and even more so with a magnifying glass, one can easily notice flaws in natural emeralds. Inclusions of liquid, gas, minerals, as well as tiny cracks in a natural emerald should be. They give the stones a slightly muddy look. The larger the stone, the more of them. Therefore, large emeralds with small flaws are fabulous money. By the way, all these bubbles, feathers and cracks, according to jewelers, do not spoil emeralds in the least. They even came up with a special term for them - Jardin (kindergarten in French). The “garden” inside each emerald is as individual as a fingerprint.
