What you Need to Know About Gemstone Identification

As you further engage in jewelry making knowing the stones you are working with becomes an important task. Every type of gemstone has a unique set of physical and optical qualities including:

• Color: The color of a gemstone is one of the characteristics that jewelers when evaluating a stone. The color of a gemstone is evaluated based on:
  • Hue:
  The most valuable gemstones are those that exhibit a pure color and only "slight" hues of other colors in addition to their primary color,
  
  • Tone: Tone represents the depth of color, ranging from colorless to black.
    

  • Saturation: Saturation, or color purity, refers to the degree to which the gem is free from brown or gray hues.
    

  
  

• Luster:The luster of gems is one of their important and distinctive characters.
  

  Not only does it form one of the easiest means of distinguishing gems, but it is also one of the most reliable characters sought by those experts who depend for their determinations of gems on ocular examination alone. The luster of gems is one of their important and distinctive characters. Not only does it form one of the easiest means of distinguishing gems, but it is also one of the most reliable characters sought by those experts who depend for their determinations of gems on ocular examination alone.
  

• Hardness: Gemstones hardness is measured by the Mohs' scale, which was created by the German mineralogist Friedrich Mohs in 1822 to measure the relative hardness or scratch resistance of various minerals. The hardness of a material is measured against the scale by finding the hardest material that that the given material can scratch, or the softest material that can scratch the given material.
  

• Gravity: It is the ratio of the density of the gemstone to the density of water. This is the most precise method to assess the quality of a stone.
  

• Reflective index:The faceting of a gemstone will affect how light will behave as it passes through the outside surface into the interior of the gem. Light can either be reflected off of the stone's exterior surface affecting its luster; or the light can pass through the exterior surface of the stone and be refracted, scattered, and dispersed as the light bounces off of interior surfaces then exiting the stone. As a light beam passes through a gem it is bent or "refracted" before it exits the crystal. The light beam is also broken into its component parts (dispersion) causing the effect known as "fire."