Shine a Blacklight onto the Emerald A natural emerald will show a pure green or blue-green hue. With the light, it will either not have any backlight or a weak orange-red or green color. Synthetic emeralds fluorescence will showcase a dark red color. An imitation stone will have a yellow or brown undertone color.
The color of the gemstone is often used to indicate its authenticity. Hold your gem up to the light and analyze its color. Real emeralds will showcase a pure green or blue-green hue. Hence, if the stone you are holding displays yellow or brown undertones, it is most likely a fake.
Emeralds are occasionally color-enhanced by introducing dye into surface reaching fissures to deepen the green color of less valuable lighter Emeralds. This treatment is easily detected by observing the Emerald under magnification.
The most-prized emeralds are highly transparent. Their color is evenly distributed, with no eye-visible color zoning. If the hue is too yellowish or too bluish, the stone is not emerald, but a different variety of beryl, and its value drops accordingly.
Not even dealers can distinguish between natural and synthetic ones without looking inside the emeralds. Synthetic ones have all the same chemical and visual properties of emeralds, and the only way to distinguish between them and natural emeralds without lab equipment is their inclusions.
If you hold an authentic emerald stone up to a light source, it will shine but with a dull fire. However, an emerald stone won't produce rainbow flashes. If the stone sparkles and has intense fire, it is likely a faux stone.
Synthetic emeralds are some of the most expensive synthetic gems. The methods used to create them in labs require expensive equipment. The process is slow and energy intensive, and the yield of facetable material is low. Nevertheless, a lab-created emerald isn't nearly as valuable as a natural emerald.
Shine a Blacklight onto the Emerald
A natural emerald will show a pure green or blue-green hue. With the light, it will either not have any backlight or a weak orange-red or green color. Synthetic emeralds fluorescence will showcase a dark red color. An imitation stone will have a yellow or brown undertone color.
The Trapiche Emerald is the rarest type of emerald. While there is plenty of information out there regarding emeralds, their various hues, places of origin, and possible inclusions; there is not much out there about this unusual variety of emerald.
The most expensive emerald color is a bluish green hue with medium tone and full saturation. I specify the terms hue, tone, and saturation because these are the three factors that all colors of gems are judged by, excluding black, white, and colorless gems.
The color saturation also determines the price of the stone. The rarest and most expensive are intense green, dark and deep. Light-colored stones are cheaper.
Zambian emeralds with relatively good transparency and fewer inclusions are considered top-quality emeralds. The clarity in natural Colombian emerald stone is slightly rarer since inclusions are more prominently visible in its vibrant green hue.
Emerald Simulants - Glass, Plastic, and Other Gemstones as Emeralds | The Natural Emerald Company.
Are real emeralds cloudy? Many are, but not all! Because Emeralds are a Type III stone, we expect them to have inclusions – and often so many that the gem is somewhat cloudy. However, super high-quality natural Emeralds can be eye-clean! Another way of choosing an eye-clean Emerald is to choose a Lab-Created Emerald.
Contrary to popular belief, emeralds are very resistant to scratches. A direct measure of this is the Mohs Hardness Scale. Any mineral on the scale can be scratched by a mineral the same rank or above it, but cannot be scratched by anything below it.
The first step is to check for any inclusion on the stone with your bare eyes. If you're unable to see any inclusions with your bare eyes, then use a magnifying glass of at least 10X magnification to find out if the gemstone contains any inclusions. If you found any, then they are real gemstones.
Note that darker does not mean better. Rich color is the darkest one should look for in emeralds. The finest gemstones are based on taste and generally range from medium, medium rich, to rich color.
Darker emeralds are often considered more valuable, but if an emerald becomes too dark, it becomes less valuable. Emeralds with medium to medium-dark tones are the most valuable emeralds in the market.
There are many famous emeralds, but the Rockefeller emerald stands out among them all. It is not the largest emerald in the world, or even the largest gem quality emerald. However, it is the largest flawless emerald in the world and the most expensive emerald at $5.5 million USD.
The true or primary color of the emerald is green and that remains constant. Its secondary hue, however, can range from blue-green to yellow-green, with the latter being the most sought-after variant. Also, only emeralds have a medium to dark color tone.
For example: The heat of a lamp, daylight, or intense UV rays will not damage the emerald or change the green color in any way. This makes emeralds much more stable than aquamarines, which will fade in daylight.
Emeralds range between $200 to $9,000 per carat depending on the color, clarity, and cut of the individual stones. Like diamonds, these gems can be naturally mined or lab grown. Lab grown emeralds tend to cost much less, around $350 per carat on average.
Because they're made in a lab environment in much less time, lab emeralds are more efficient and cost significantly less than their natural counterparts (but more on that later!) for budget-friendly beauty and quality.
High quality emeralds are usually pure green to bluish, since yellowish ones look very similar to peridot (a characteristically yellowish green gem).
Emeralds are rarer and often more expensive than diamonds
When it comes to rare and expensive gemstones, most of us immediately think of diamonds, but, in fact, emeralds are more than 20 times rarer than diamonds and, therefore, often command a higher price.