How to distinguish a real emerald from a fake?

The ques­tion of dis­tin­guish­ing an emer­ald from fakes is quite acute, as mod­ern man­u­fac­tur­ing meth­ods and tech­nolo­gies are con­stant­ly devel­op­ing. When buy­ing jew­el­ry in spe­cial­ized and well-known stores, we do not always pay atten­tion to their orig­i­nal­i­ty, because there is no way to check it. How to pro­ceed if you want to place an order at a jew­el­ry store, where you go for the first time? It is pre­cise­ly for these pur­pos­es that 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 will be able to avoid falling for the tricks of fraud­sters after care­ful­ly study­ing this arti­cle.

We should start with the fact that emer­ald belongs to the beryl group. 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 of 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. Due to its fea­tures, an emer­ald can become not only beau­ti­ful dec­o­ra­tion to empha­size sta­tus, but also an excel­lent means of pro­tec­tion against unclean influ­ences.

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

It is not so easy to fake a min­er­al, but it is quite pos­si­ble. Fraud­sters often use the imi­ta­tion method. In some stores, you may be told that the jew­el­ry is made of this emer­ald, although in fact, par­ti­cles of jade, phi­an­ite, tour­ma­line, green gar­net, and oth­er impu­ri­ties are added to it. Some­times two stones (duplet) are glued togeth­er, but they have noth­ing to do with a nat­ur­al min­er­al. You can also find emer­ald floors that are just as expen­sive but look dif­fer­ent in real­i­ty. Often, stones can be con­nect­ed to each oth­er with the help of 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 an arti­fi­cial emer­ald from a nat­ur­al one? para­dox­es

In addi­tion to stan­dard meth­ods of forgery, it is worth men­tion­ing uncon­ven­tion­al ones. If, for exam­ple, you notice that the jew­el­ry has a clear loss of col­or or oth­er defects, do not be in a hur­ry to despair. The fact is that no pro­nounced defect can serve exclu­sive­ly 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 (at dif­fer­ent angles, the col­or shim­mers), 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. For this, it is nec­es­sary to con­duct an assess­ment.

Despite the wide range of tech­nolo­gies, even the most expe­ri­enced experts do not always know how to dis­tin­guish a nat­ur­al emer­ald. Often this will require the use of spe­cial equip­ment. A mag­ni­fy­ing glass, a fil­ter and a device — a refrac­tome­ter — are required to car­ry out the appro­pri­ate expert exam­i­na­tion. Only in the pres­ence of these tools can you get the most accu­rate results. We under­stand that not every ordi­nary per­son has these items in his arse­nal (except a mag­ni­fy­ing glass), so we sug­gest you learn how to find 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 can not wor­ry. The emer­ald is real. Gas, sol­id or liq­uid impreg­na­tion — there is no dif­fer­ence, because a nat­ur­al min­er­al has at least one of them. At the same time, you need to under­stand that the dou­blet can also have inclu­sions, but there should be no cracks or chips.
2. Sta­bil­i­ty. Of course, it will be dif­fi­cult for an ordi­nary buy­er to check the strength and dura­bil­i­ty of a stone by hit­ting it with some objects. You sim­ply won’t be allowed to. How­ev­er, you can ask the man­ag­er or sales­per­son to pro­vide proof.
3. Sharp­ness of faces. Be sure to remem­ber the fact that a real stone has high def­i­n­i­tion bound­aries. A fake usu­al­ly has smooth edges. You should also pay atten­tion to the sur­face — it can be treat­ed with spe­cial oil or anoth­er solu­tion. Make sure that there are no addi­tion­al impu­ri­ties.

Answer­ing the ques­tion of how to rec­og­nize a real emer­ald, we found the main fac­tor is col­or. Since chromi­um is part of this stone, it has a pro­nounced green tint. The col­or should be fan­tas­tic and uni­form. Fakes usu­al­ly have shades of yel­low or a brighter col­or when pour­ing, so be sure to pay atten­tion to this fact. In addi­tion, a nat­ur­al min­er­al, as we said before, 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 vis­i­ble, and this is nor­mal. Dif­fer­ent small-shaped bub­bles, small abra­sions, cracks inside — all this will def­i­nite­ly speak of nat­u­ral­ness. But again — in this case, you can reduce the cost.

The infor­ma­tion we have pro­vid­ed above may not be enough for every­one. There­fore, if you still ask the ques­tion — how to deter­mine the authen­tic­i­ty of an emer­ald, we will give anoth­er way. You will only need to request a cer­tifi­cate con­firm­ing the fact of nat­u­ral­ness. The inspec­tion is car­ried out by a spe­cial­ist, whose posi­tion is called a gem­mol­o­gist. Only he can pro­vide a tes­ti­mo­ny that will def­i­nite­ly not con­fuse you. Of course, the cost may be slight­ly high­er if you have such a doc­u­ment, but you will be 100% sure of authen­tic­i­ty.

What fac­tors influ­ence the price pol­i­cy of emer­ald?

Often, many peo­ple ask why one piece of emer­ald jew­el­ry is more expen­sive, and anoth­er is a lit­tle cheap­er. Before answer­ing this ques­tion, it is nec­es­sary to under­stand that the price may depend on its deposit. 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 fraud­sters, because some can eas­i­ly make up a sto­ry. Also, the col­or of the prod­uct strong­ly affects the cost. The more sat­u­rat­ed the green (chrome), the high­er its price.

Some jew­el­ry own­ers are inter­est­ed in how to check an emer­ald at home? It is quite dif­fi­cult to answer this ques­tion, because for a full-fledged 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 will be to buy prod­ucts direct­ly from the man­u­fac­tur­er or offi­cial deal­er. Also, the pres­ence of cer­tifi­cates can pro­tect you from coun­ter­feit­ing. We wish you pleas­ant, prof­itable and safe orders!