Gemstone Colors - The Color of Colored Stones

Now we come to the all important matter of evaluating the virtues of a colored stone. You might already have gathered an idea from What Differentiates a Gem From Any Other Stone?; nonetheless, we will discuss it in detail.

Remember the 4 C’s of Diamond I told you about that decided the price of a diamond. Well, in case of colored stones, there is just one – the color. Not that a bigger emerald will not cost more, but the hue and liveliness of an emerald could practically decide its price without much bearing on the other parameters.

Now finding out the color of any gemstone is a tricky issue. Firstly because what color a gemstone seems to be of depends greatly on what kind of light you examine it under. Hues and tones happen to be very deceptive and cannot be decided on the basis of a preliminary examination. Secondly, ‘what hue is better than what?’ is more of a question of subjective perception than anything else.

That being said, we still need a system for finding out which one is more expensive than which one. And we have them, but perhaps too many for our convenience. The GIA’s Color Master is rarely in use today, with its reliable but overly sophisticated conventions. So the market, inasmuch as there is, is divided between three systems introduced by the American Gemological Laboratories ColorScan, GemSet and GemDialogue – out of which the first seems to be the most comprehensive one.

The computer software technology is all set to change the way we describe the colors of gemstones. Gem eWizard offers a free version of their popular software that helps describing the color of gemstones accurately.

Most jewelers still rely on subjective evaluation – that is to say, their senses, their intelligence and a wealth of experience they have acquired over the years.