We truly believe in your desire to be different and to design your own engagement ring or custom jewelry. A gorgeously colored gemstone makes a stunning centerpiece. For those who perhaps see themselves as a bit different, these stones can show off an elegant, playful, eye-catching, unique vibe that is as special as your relationship! But how do you choose a gemstone for that jewelry piece? Are they graded like diamonds? Read on to learn everything you never knew about colored gemstones!
The main concerns for choosing gemstones are the following:
1. Quality – How is a gemstone graded and how valuable is it? We will examine cut, color, transparency and clarity, all of which are factors in the quality of a gemstone.
2. Strength – How hard or tough is the gemstone? Will it resist the wear and tear of day-to-day use?
3. Durability – How durable is the gemstone to the effects of heat, sunlight, or exposure to harsh chemicals? How should it be cared for? This is known for each type of stone and its unique characteristics.
Gemstones Engagement Rings
Grading Basics
Just like hunting for the right diamond, finding a quality gemstone for your engagement ring involves learning some new terminology and developing your eye’s ability to scout for quality. To help, trade grades for gemstones were established and are used widely. The 3 most significant factors are cut, color, and symmetry, but also include tone, saturation, extinction areas, presence or absence of inclusions, and distribution of color. In fact, the standards are very similar to those of diamonds, except that with gemstones we also consider color and hue to be a very distinct marker of quality.
Grades that are followed in the trade are as follows:
AAA – Also known as triple A, these are the best and the highest graded stones.
AA – These are also very good stones but fall a little short of the best in one or all categories.
A – They are still good and can be quite passable in some stones.
B – This is where you start compromising on the quality of the stone for the sake of price. However, depending on the stone you choose, you might find something lovely.
Different Quality Grade Emerlad Gemstones
Diamonds are cut to enhance the stone’s brilliance, dispersion or fire, and sparkle or scintillation. Other gemstones, for the most part, lack any real ability for ‘fire’, or the dispersion of light, and so are cut to focus on their brilliance and their sparkle. You should look at the shape for good symmetry and depth of the cut, evaluate for brilliance, identify any dark areas due to extinction, and look out for cavities in the gem body.
Shape or Outline: The gemstone you select should have a shape or outline that is well within the acceptable range. Symmetry of the shape is the most important factor. Remember that in order to retain maximum weight, a natural gemstone is almost never cut perfectly. In addition, a gemstone that is cut too shallow will create what is termed a ‘window’, through which you could literally read a word. It is not a desirable trait. Look for a well-balanced shape that is not cut too shallow.
Brilliance: As in diamonds, this is the most important factor in terms of cut quality, and it refers to the return of light, which shows up as bright areas present in a stone when viewed from top. A good quality stone will have its facets cut in order to maximize brilliance. The more sparkle it has, the better it is.
Extinction: Dark areas in a gemstone are known as extinctions. They appear as areas where no color is reflected back. A gemstone with a good cut will have a minimum area with extinction, or none at all. You should see as much color as possible.
Example of Extinction in the gemstone on the right
Another feature to watch out for is the presence of cavities. A cavity is a fissure or crack and is a common feature of a natural gemstone, especially in the pavilion, the area below the girdle. Cavities are something to avoid in any stone including diamonds, because their presence creates what is called an ‘optical void’. To solve this, cavities can be and are often filled like a tooth, or cleaned in order to reduce their appearance. While this might make them more visually appealing, once a gem has been tampered with in this way it is no longer considered ‘natural’, but is now considered ‘treated’, which affects its value. Also, if you purchase a stone that has had a cavity filled, be careful when cleaning it. Ultrasonic cleaning may dislodge the filling.
Consider the infinite number of colors in nature, and how many ways we use color to interpret the world we live in. We associate them with love, passion, anger, other emotions and energy levels, and they permeate our language and for some, our very identities. If you are considering a colored gemstone for an engagement ring, it stands to reason that color is considered the most important quality factor. The more color a stone has the more valuable it is. Mid-tone gemstones are considered the best.
Gem color is divided into 3 factors that are internationally recognized, and they are hue, tone, and saturation:
Hue refers to the spectral colors that you see. Put simply, this is what we mean when we are asked to choose a favorite color. A hue can be pure, such as a perfect blue diamond, or have other shades mixed in to produce hybrid hues, such as a red-orange Madeira citrine. The best gemstones are those with a pure hue; a modifying or secondary color would usually lower the quality of a gemstone. Hue does not refer to the lightness or darkness of a color.
Tone is how we describe the lightness or darkness of a color, as if we added white or black. Each hue can have a lighter version or a darker version and we measure these levels in percentages. When it comes to tone, mid-tones are considered the best. When the tone is low, it gives the stone a milky color and when the tone is too high, it gives a color that is too dark for most people.
Saturation is the amount of color. This is also measured in percentages. Interestingly, with saturation, like tone, more isn’t necessarily better. A saturation of 90% might be less appealing than 85% in many colored gemstones. We use the term ‘fancy’ to refer to saturation of a gemstone, meaning it has the maximum amount of color possible. Some gemstones are said to be ‘color zoned’. If this is the case, it means that it shows different colors in its different body parts, such as mixed tourmaline like watermelon tourmaline. You will not see this in the more expensive varieties.
How Hue, Tone and Saturation Work Together
Although ignored by most, the transparency of a gemstone is one of the quality factors that can affect its price significantly. Transparency, in gem talk, is the gem’s ability to transmit light, as well as to scatter that light when it exits. To judge transparency, you also have to know the usual transparency of a gemstone available in the market.
Let us take the gorgeous red ruby as an example to illustrate. Rubies are widely known as a transparent gemstone; if it lacks transparency, it will be less valuable. In other words, the lower the transparency, the lower the quality and the price. Each gemstone has its exceptions as well. In ruby’s case, some gemstones such as a ‘star ruby’ never come in a truly transparent state. The highest rating in this example would be semi-transparent.
Lets look a the emerald, the highly transparent stones are the most prized.
Transparent (left) vs More Opaque (right) Emerald
For most transparent gemstones which are available in transparent form, the highest clarity is an ‘eye-clean’ gemstone, meaning that it appears to have good clarity with only the naked eye, and not with a magnifying glass. A loupe, as it is called, is never used to judge the clarity of a gemstone.
There is a lot of similarity between the inclusions found in a diamond and a gemstone. The main difference lies in the distribution of these inclusions. They are not all bad, however, and provide us with distinguishing features that sometimes have their own names. For example, an emerald usually has so many inclusions that we call them ‘jardin’ which means a garden.
Gemstones can also have special inclusions which give rise to phenomenon, for example the ‘star’ ruby will have needle-like inclusions arranged in specific planes giving rise to a star-shaped pattern.
A ‘Star’ Ruby Gemstone
