Just how critical is the “color” in color stone jewelry? It’s a lot, because the finer and the more dazzling the color of a gemstone is, other factors like carat clarity and cutting will have less impact on the price.
Color doesn’t just refer to a stone’s hue; it also refers to the overall impact of the stone because of its color. Some romantics call it the essence or the soul of the stone. There’s actually a science to determining the color of a gemstone. Gemological organizations actually evaluate a stone’s color through light. The kind of light and the intensity of the lighting can have a dramatic effect of a stone’s color. The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) use a machine specifically designed to assess a stone’s color - the Color Master. On the other hand, the American Gemological Laboratories also has a similar machine – the Color Scan system.
Admittedly though, at the end of the day, the beauty of a stone’s color still depend on the eyes of the beholder.
But in terms of value, colored stone that are too light or too dark are sold for less per carat. Yes, the darker the stone, and the more expensive it is. But if the stone is too dark that it appears almost lifeless, then it is also less valuable.
What Makes A Color?
A gemstone’s color is actually a combination of colors from the spectrum – from red to violet –with varying degrees of white, gray, black, and brown. Such colors affect the tone of the color. A combination of black and red yields darker shade of red.
So what is a desirable color in gems? Very basically, the purer the spectral color (and less and less of the white, gray, black and brown), the better it is. For example, the purer the blue, the more prized the stone. When talking about color, gemologists give reference to four aspects: hue, tone, intensity, and distribution.
Hue refers to the stone’s spectral color, that is, whether it’s orange, violet, green, blue, indigo, yellow or red. Intensity is also known as saturation and it refers to the overall brightness of the stone’s color. Tone, on the other hand, refers to how much gray, black, brown or white there is in the stone. Distribution, meanwhile, indicates if the color is distributed even or unevenly throughout the stone.
Cutting can also greatly increase or decrease the intensity and tone of the stone’s color, depending on the cut.
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