Color, clarity, and cut, without the slogans

Color is three decisions

Hue is the kind of color: blue, green, pink-orange. Tone is how light or dark. Saturation is how strong, versus gray or brown. A dark stone can be saturated and still look black on the hand. A light stone can be pretty and still be pale.

Look in daylight and under a lamp. Some sapphires and alexandrites are supposed to shift. Most stones should not look like a different species when the bulb changes.

Clarity follows the species

Emerald is expected to show inclusions. A flawless emerald-looking stone is a reason to ask what it is, not a reason to celebrate. Aquamarine, topaz, and many spinels are expected to be cleaner. An eye-visible crack in those is a bigger problem than a crystal in an emerald.

Inclusions can also identify a natural stone. They are not a moral failing. They are information. Our windowing note explains the related case where a stone looks open in the center because of the cut, not because of a crack.

Cut and the old labels

A heavy pavilion adds carat and can hide color in the bottom of the stone. A wide window lets you see through the middle and drains the color. Millimetres tell you the footprint. Carat tells you the mass. Use both.

“Precious” once meant diamond, ruby, sapphire, and emerald in some shop talk, and everything else was “semi-precious.” That split does not track hardness, rarity, or beauty. Alexandrite, fine spinel, and a vivid tsavorite are not lesser because an old shelf label left them out. We do not price stones with those two words.

Questions

Do you use a numbered clarity grade?

Not as a universal scale on these guides. A clarity grade without the species is misleading. Read inclusions on the item, and ask us if a report uses a scale you do not know.

Is a bigger carat always a bigger look?

No. Density and proportions decide the face. A carat of sapphire is smaller in outline than a carat of quartz cut the same way.