Buying Jewels

[Greenday]

I'm in Afghanistan and I've learned that you can get jewelry for pretty cheap here at the bazaars (at least cheaper than what I'd pay back home). The problem is, it's super easy to get ripped off here and I'm not an expert at gems. Pretty soon I'll have instruments that'd allow me to actually check what they are if I can find what to look for but they aren't portable and jewels aren't returnable.

I REALLY wanted to get an emerald for a friend, but from what I was just reading, emeralds are the most easily faked jewels. Actually, there are multiple emerald mines near my base or so I see. But if these guys at the bazaar can fool me with fakes, they WILL. I really wanted to get her a green gem but she also likes red and blue (blue being her favorite color but she already has a blue gem necklace). Rubies are also pretty easily faked from what I hear. One guy was trying to sell me an emerald necklace (I'm not buying huge gems, gust relatively small ones) for $150. I managed to get him down to $100 but I didn't have $100 on me. He said if I paid him $70 now, I could pay him $30 in the next couple days. That kinda set off an alarm in my head though.

For my sister, I want to get some light blue, like aquamarine. Not sure what the deal on those are. One store had one I liked which he started at $80 but went down to $70. He picked up one that looked exactly like it and told me it was only $15, then pointed out that it was a fake.

There's one bizarre here which sells those mini microscopes that jewelers use. I could get one of them but I need to know what to look for.

[Cookie]

Not a gem expert, but I did see a piece on TV once about fake jewels. They looked for very tiny bubbles in the stones. If there were bubbles, they declared it a fake. Hopefully, someone else here will know more than me, but maybe that's a start.

[surreal20]

I do know that for Sapphires, the real gems are a very DARK color of blue. So blue they nearly look black. If you hold and Onyx and a Sapphire together, you can tell one is more blue than black. And th other is definately black.

Anyway, so to tell if a Sapphire is real there are 2 ways i use. And it turns out more often to be true. (i'm no expert, but i LOVE Sapphires.)

Step 1: See that it is a very dark blue. almost black
Step 2: Hold it up to a light. If the seemingly black color turns into a blue, it's most probable it's a real gem.

I can't tell you on the others, but that's a start.

Do note: If they tell you it's a sapphire and it's nice pretty blue. Aqua colored or a lighter blue, something rather shiny...totally lab created.

[Solumina]

Um...sapphires come in various hues and saturations, from the deep blue that you described to pink and even clear.

Really if you don't know exactly what to look for then it is going to be hard for you to spot the real deal, even if the stone is a real gem it may not be the gem you think it is. Lots of people try to pass non-precious stone off as something that can command a higher price.

[wolfie]

One option is to see if it's the right Mohs hardness. Emerald is a tough one, since it's fairly soft so far as gemstones are concerned. Can you get your hands on a small piece of broken glass, and a small (new) file? Be sure it's a general-purpose file (not an ignition point file, or one of the specialty ones coated with diamond dust). There are too many types of grit used in sandpaper (ranging from glass to synthetic sapphire) for it to be a useful comparison.

My guess is that fake gems are likely to be made from glass - a file is harder than glass, but softer than emerald, so it will scratch glass but leave a real emerald untouched. Get a piece of scrap glass (empty bottle is good) and try giving it a few strokes of the file (face, not edge) to see what effect it'll have on a fake emerald.

Note that this test will damage a fake.

[Cookie]

Solumina has a point about sapphires. I own a red sapphire necklace and earring set.

[Bella_Vixen]

I've noticed that fake gems are more...bright...than the real thing. Although fake emeralds tend to be darker than real.

It's hard for me to explain, really.

[Greenday]

I've noticed that fake gems are more...bright...than the real thing. Although fake emeralds tend to be darker than real.

It's hard for me to explain, really.

I know what you mean. Synthesized gems are generally made to be brighter and shinier since that is more attractive to people.

I highly doubt any vendor is going to allow me to scratch up their merchandise.

[Food Lady]

I believe there are portable spectrometers with charts that tell you which gemstones match which numbers. I guess you could order online? Also, there are bright blue sapphires, which are of much more value and quality than the dark ones, and should be more expensive. And emeralds at this point are almost always coming out of the ground with inclusions. If it's perfect, it's probably lab-created or fake. (And BTW, lab-created is NOT fake. It just means it was formed indoors rather than outdoors, outof the same raw material. Consider the "difference" between a hothouse rose and one growing in your yard. They are still both roses.)

[Seshat]

Also be aware that the value of a gemstone is simply what someone will pay for it.

If you just want to buy your family a beautiful necklace (or bracelet, or ring, or whatever), then the major difference between 'real' and 'fake' is the durability.

Because sapphires, diamonds, and emeralds are so close to the top of the hardness scale, they're extremely durable.

I'm told that the molecular structures of these stones also allow them to be cut to 'sparkle' in a way that glass and other materials can't.

So. Look for sparkle, look for hardness (if you can), and otherwise just buy something that you value for the price being asked.

[Bella_Vixen]

My sister thinks it's weird that I got her eldest son to be able to tell the difference between real and fake opals (his birthstone). That's probably the easiest one.

[Becks]

Because sapphires, diamonds, and emeralds are so close to the top of the hardness scale, they're extremely durable.

I always heard that emeralds were among the softest?

Rubies are second only to diamonds, though.

[Greenday]

Emeralds are around 7.5-8.0 on the Mohs hardness scale.

Rubies, yes, are one of the hardest.

[Seshat]

Emeralds are the softest of the "precious gems", being "only" an 8 on a scale where 1 is Talc, and 10 is Diamond.

[MoonCat]

Diamonds are the hardest. Rubies and sapphires are next down...they are both corundum, just different colors.

Real emeralds are usually a fairly light green shade. They're not that deep, dark, forest green.

Many gems are treated in certain ways to bring out their color. For example, they might be heated...tanzanites are heat-treated to get that beautiful blue/purple shade.