An emerald gemstone in organic condition — Photo: Yayimages

Emerald, a deep green rare gemstone that symbolizes peace and tranquility. Emeralds are loved for their color as they beautify your jewelry and according to legend, give you calmness and relax your nerves.

Buying an emerald is not as tricky as buying a diamond. Knowing the physical attributes of a gemstone can help you make the right choice. The 4C’s which are used to evaluate a diamond can also be used to choose the right emerald. However, a different significance is assigned to each C when assessing emeralds. By using the information about the 4C’s of emeralds, you can find a gemstone that is the right value for your money.

Color

Color is by far the most important C when evaluating an emerald. The best emeralds range from bluish green to pure green with bright tone and color saturation and which is not too dark, in contrast to diamonds where a colorless diamond is what brings in the most value. When you look at an emerald, it is either a bright vibrant green or a dull, limp color or possibly something in between.

Trace elements like chromium, vanadium and iron give color to an emerald. The presence or absence of each of these trace elements determines the exact color of the crystal.

The Three Color Categories of Emeralds

Hue

Hue means the type of green color an emerald has. Most emeralds sold in the market today range from bluish-green to dark green. If the color is too yellowish or bluish, it is not an emerald and the value will be lower compared to the original emerald.

The emerald market is saturated with Columbian emeralds and most of these crystals have a more intense pure green color. Whereas Zambian emeralds are said to have a cooler, more bluish-green color.

Tone

The tone determines its value. It classifies it in terms of light and dark. A good quality, naturally occurring emerald falls somewhere between very light and very dark.

It is believed that the darker the tone, the better the emerald. However, this is not true. An emerald with a medium tone is ideal for purchase, but it is important to look at the hue and saturation of the crystal as well.

Saturation

Saturation refers to the intensity and strength of the green color. Saturation can vary on a scale of dull to vivid. An emerald with dull saturation is likely to have more grey. Grey will reduce the saturation and give a dull look to the stone. Therefore, emeralds with visible grey should be avoided.

When you are evaluating the color of an emerald for your jewelry, make sure you go for a crystal that is greenish in color and has a medium tone and vivid saturation. You can fall in love with the green color with the right saturation and tone.

Clarity

Unlike diamonds where the value diminishes when there are inclusions, emeralds contain them and are visible to the eye without the aid of any equipment.

In fact, 99% of the naturally occurring emeralds have inclusions. The GIA organizes emeralds as Type 3 which means that there are always inclusions. If you don’t see any inclusion, you need to check if the emerald is real or not.

Inclusions are not necessarily bad for emeralds. Emeralds belong to the beryl mineral family and the inclusions are a result of liquids, gases and minerals like chromium and vanadium.

As with diamonds, emeralds with better clarity are sold at a higher price in the market. When the inclusion affects the transparency and clarity of the stone, it can dramatically reduce its value.

However, you need to be careful about the type of inclusions you see. Typical emerald inclusions resemble branches and roots. So if you see inclusions that look like bubbles and big blotches, the emerald is not for you.

Cut

Set of realistic green emeralds with rectangle cuts isolated on white background. — Photo: iStock

Just like with diamonds, the cutter of an emerald must consider the depth of color, durability and inclusions when making the decisions about cutting the stone. Mistakes in cutting can seriously affect the value of this precious gem and can result in considerable weight loss.

Ideally, an emerald should be cut in a symmetrical manner so that the appropriate amount of light can pass through the stone. If cut too deeply, the light will escape on the side and the emerald will look dark. Similarly, if the cut is too shallow, the emerald will not appear brilliant. Since color is a very important consideration when choosing an emerald, the cut must maximize the hue, tone and saturation of the stone.

The three most popular cuts are Emerald, Asscher and Octagon, with the emerald cut the most desired. It is a rectangular or square cut that maximizes the shape of the rough and allows maximum light to flow in, giving the right brilliance and tone to the stone. Apart from the emerald cuts.

One important factor when cutting an emerald is that all of these stones have naturally occurring inclusions and fissures. A cutter must design the cut in a way that the finished stone has minimal impact on the clarity of the stone.

Carat Weight

The weight of emeralds is measured in Carats where each carat is equal to 0.02 grams. The emeralds with the Royal Family and in the museums weigh hundreds of carats and are extremely valuable. In comparison, the popular size of emeralds used in jewelry is between 0.25 and 1.5 carats.

An emerald with more carat weight will be more expensive compared to a smaller emerald keeping all other factors the same.

Choosing a rare gemstone can be tricky for an untrained person. With more information about the 4C’s of emeralds, you can surely make a more informed decision when choosing emeralds for your jewelry.

red diamond 3d rendering — Red Diamond Emerald

Since ancient times, the Emerald has caught the interest and fascination of humans. Like many other gifts of nature found in lush green shades, real emeralds are also found in stunning green color. There are other green gems such as peridot and tourmaline but none are as famous, beautiful and rightfully expensive as emeralds. In this article, we will try to shed some light on the historical significance of the stone. Let’s start with its name origin and some ancient history.

Emerald’s name origin

Historians are agreed on the fact that the word ‘Emerald’ is the distorted form of a Greek word ‘smaragdus’ which means ‘green’.

Trace back of emerald in the history

The first mining of emerald was reported in the ancient Egypt dating back to 300 BC. In Egypt, emerald was revered as a precious gemstone. Cleopatra, the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt considered the manifestation of beauty, was fond of emerald and it is used as part of many of her royal adornments.

History also suggests that Roman were also fond of this magnificent gemstone. According to the writings of famous Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, in ancient Rome people stared into emerald to relieve tediousness and exhaustion.

In the following discussion, we will try to look into the importance of emerald in different cultural and religious symbolism.

Emerald: Equally loved by ancient gods

In many religious beliefs, offering emerald to the spiritual deity results in different rewards for the people. For instance, Hindus were the belief that people who offer emerald to the god Krishna become high in heaven and god rewards these generous offerings with the knowledge of soul and eternity.

There is another historical trace of people offering emeralds to their gods. A Spanish historian from the 16th century AD, who had extensively researched on the north of South America, also hinted about the emerald offering of the natives to their gods. According to him, people used to burn emeralds and gold before the depictions of the Moon and Sun which are considered the highest divinities.

Emerald used as a rewarding gift to gods implies that not only humans but gods were also fond of this gemstone.

Emerald: A stone embedded in the breastplate of Aaron

The breastplate of Aaron, which is discussed in the Old Testament, had different gemstones embedded in it. Scholars are still debating the type of those gemstones because revision to the original text has changed the names and categorization of the stones. Apart from that, the linguistic changes through the course of time have also altered the names of different gemstones.

It has been cited that a greenstone was used in the breastplate of Aaron. It could be the real green emerald, green feldspar or any other green stone but historical indications are stronger towards the use of emerald. Emerald began to be mined near the ancient site of Nubia, Egypt before the era in which the breastplate got made.

The Peruvian goddess made of emerald

In the 15th century, when Spanish kingdom was roaring around the South America, people of the city of Manta in present-day Peru used to worship a goddess named Umina. The goddess was made of an emerald of the size of an ostrich egg. It was displayed to the public only on feast days by the priest.

According to their dogmatic belief, followers can worship the goddess by only bringing her daughters. Small size emeralds were called the daughters of the Umina. When the city was captured and conquered by the Spaniards, they found plenty of emeralds there however they failed to trace the emerald goddess Umina.

Spaniards also waste many of these precious gemstones in order to determine their originality. They smashed emeralds on anvil because they were of the thought that original emerald is the hardest gemstones and it can withstand this smashing.

Emerald Symbolism embedded in depiction of mystic and mysterious cities

There are many tales and folklore in India which talks about the mysterious cities and forts with walls, facets and entire temples made of gold and other precious elements. There are paintings which depict these cities and their features. According to the pictorial depictions of those wealthy cities, leaves of plants and trees have dripping emeralds and rubies.

From the above discussion, it is quite clear that emerald has always been an important part of different historical religious and cultural reference spread all across the world.

Howard Fensterman Minerals

Tag Archives: Emeralds

The 4C’s of Emeralds