How to distinguish a real emerald from a fake?

The issue of dis­tin­guish­ing an emer­ald from fakes is quite acute, since mod­ern meth­ods and man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nolo­gies are con­stant­ly evolv­ing. When buy­ing jew­el­ry in spe­cial­ized and well-known stores, we do not always pay atten­tion to their orig­i­nal­i­ty, because we do not have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to check. What to do if you want to place an order with a jew­el­ry store where you are vis­it­ing for the first time? Just for these pur­pos­es, you need to know how to iden­ti­fy a nat­ur­al emer­ald. This stone is one of the most pop­u­lar among jew­el­ry, so it is often faked. You can avoid falling for the tricks of scam­mers after care­ful­ly study­ing this arti­cle.

It should start with the fact that the emer­ald belongs to the beryl groups. For sev­er­al decades, only kings and queens could afford to wear jew­el­ry from this rich resource, but today the sit­u­a­tion has changed. Now almost every per­son who has enough finan­cial resources can buy a piece of jew­el­ry made from this stone. The min­er­al is dis­tin­guished by its incred­i­ble prop­er­ties: it is not only attrac­tive from an exter­nal point of view, but also has a num­ber of unique char­ac­ter­is­tics. Thanks to its fea­tures, the emer­ald can become not only beau­ti­ful dec­o­ra­tion to empha­size the sta­tus, but also an excel­lent means of pro­tec­tion from impure influ­ences.

How to choose the per­fect emer­ald and not fall into the net­work of fakes?

Forg­ing a min­er­al is not so easy, but it is quite pos­si­ble. Very often scam­mers use the imi­ta­tion method. In some stores, you may be told that the jew­el­ry is made of real emer­ald, although in fact par­ti­cles of jade, cubic zir­co­nia, tour­ma­line, green gar­net and oth­er impu­ri­ties are added to it. Some­times two stones (dou­blet) are glued togeth­er, but they have noth­ing to do with a nat­ur­al min­er­al. You can also find semi-emer­alds that cost just as much but look dif­fer­ent in real­i­ty. Often, stones can be con­nect­ed to each oth­er using green paste, and frag­ments of nat­ur­al stone are usu­al­ly attached from the out­side. Thus, it is dif­fi­cult for an ordi­nary per­son to find the dif­fer­ence.

How to dis­tin­guish arti­fi­cial emer­ald from nat­ur­al? Para­dox­es

In addi­tion to the stan­dard meth­ods of fakes, it is worth men­tion­ing non-tra­di­tion­al ones. If, for exam­ple, you notice that there is a clear loss of col­or or oth­er defects on the dec­o­ra­tion, do not rush to despair. The fact is that a defect that is not pro­nounced can only serve as a sign of nat­u­ral­ness. This is due to the fact that over the years the stone los­es its prop­er­ties, but this fact does not affect its dura­bil­i­ty in any way. How­ev­er, if you notice defects or prob­lems with the shade (the col­or shim­mers at dif­fer­ent angles), this is a rea­son to bar­gain with the sell­er. You can get a nat­ur­al min­er­al at a reduced price if you can under­stand it in more detail. This requires an assess­ment.

Despite the wide range of tech­nolo­gies, even the most expe­ri­enced pro­fes­sion­als do not always know how to dis­tin­guish a nat­ur­al emer­ald. Often this will require the use of spe­cial equip­ment. To con­duct an appro­pri­ate exam­i­na­tion, a spe­cial­ist will need a mag­ni­fy­ing glass, a fil­ter and a device — a refrac­tome­ter. Only in the pres­ence of these tools can the most accu­rate results be obtained. We under­stand that not every ordi­nary per­son has these items in their arse­nal (except for a mag­ni­fy­ing glass), so we invite you to learn how to spot the dif­fer­ences with the naked eye. There are sev­er­al easy fac­tors that you should def­i­nite­ly pay atten­tion to when buy­ing, because you prob­a­bly don’t want to get a fake for a lot of mon­ey.

What to pay atten­tion to?

1. Clean­li­ness of dec­o­ra­tion. If you find var­i­ous inclu­sions that are vis­i­ble even under the sun or a mag­ni­fy­ing glass, you don’t have to wor­ry. The emer­ald is real. Gas, sol­id or liq­uid inclu­sions — there is no dif­fer­ence, because a nat­ur­al min­er­al has at least one of them. In this case, you need to under­stand that the dou­blet can also be inter­spersed, but there should not be cracks or chips.
2. Per­sis­tence. Of course, it will be dif­fi­cult for the aver­age buy­er to test the strength and sta­bil­i­ty of the stone by hit­ting it with some objects. You just won’t be allowed to. How­ev­er, you can ask the man­ag­er or sell­er to pro­vide proof.
3. Edge clar­i­ty. Be sure to remem­ber the fact that a real stone has high-def­i­n­i­tion edges. A fake usu­al­ly has smooth edges. You should also pay atten­tion to the sur­face — it can be treat­ed with a spe­cial oil or oth­er solu­tion. Make sure that there are no addi­tion­al impu­ri­ties.

Answer­ing the ques­tion of how to rec­og­nize a real emer­ald, we found the main fac­tor — this is col­or. Since this stone con­tains chromi­um, it has a pro­nounced green tint. The col­or should be fan­tas­tic and unique. Fakes usu­al­ly have shades of yel­low or brighter when trans­fused, so be sure to pay atten­tion to this fact. In addi­tion, a nat­ur­al min­er­al, as we said ear­li­er, should include small defects. Of course, it is impos­si­ble to notice them with the naked eye. But when mag­ni­fied with an ordi­nary mag­ni­fy­ing glass, they can be seen, and this is nor­mal. Var­i­ous small bub­bles, small abra­sions, cracks inside — all this will def­i­nite­ly speak of nat­u­ral­ness. But then again — in this case, you can reduce the cost.

The infor­ma­tion we have pro­vid­ed above may not be suf­fi­cient for every­one. There­fore, if you are still ask­ing the ques­tion — how to deter­mine the authen­tic­i­ty of an emer­ald, we will give anoth­er way. You only need to request a cer­tifi­cate con­firm­ing the fact of nat­u­ral­ness. A spe­cial­ist whose posi­tion is called a gemol­o­gist is engaged in check­ing. Only he can pro­vide evi­dence that will def­i­nite­ly not con­fuse you. Of course, the cost may be slight­ly high­er with such a doc­u­ment, but you will be 100% sure of the authen­tic­i­ty.

What fac­tors influ­ence the price pol­i­cy of an emer­ald?

Many peo­ple often ask why one piece of emer­ald jew­el­ry is more expen­sive and the oth­er is some­what cheap­er. Before answer­ing this ques­tion, you need to under­stand that the price may depend on its field. You can also ask the sell­er what the his­to­ry of the stone is, because this also affects pric­ing. At the same time, you need to beware of scam­mers, because some can eas­i­ly come up with a sto­ry. Also, the col­or of the prod­uct great­ly affects the cost. The more sat­u­rat­ed the green (chromi­um), the high­er its price will be.

Some jew­el­ry own­ers are won­der­ing how to test an emer­ald at home? It is quite dif­fi­cult to answer this ques­tion, because for a full and com­pe­tent analy­sis, you need the appro­pri­ate tools, which we wrote about above. But you can always use sim­ple meth­ods. We also men­tioned them in this arti­cle. The best solu­tion for each of you is to pur­chase prod­ucts direct­ly from the man­u­fac­tur­er or autho­rized deal­er. Also, the pres­ence of cer­tifi­cates can pro­tect you from fakes. We wish you pleas­ant, prof­itable and safe orders!