For thousands of years, pearls, emeralds, rubies and sapphires, as well as other precious gemstones and mineral stones such as alexandrites, aquamarines, etc., have been greatly valued due to their rarity, finite nature and beauty.
It has even become technically possible to artificially manufacture gemstones. These artificial gemstones are usually of significantly lesser value than natural gemstones, but they are scarcely different in color and shape. In addition, natural gemstones and pearls vary in value depending on their origin due to their color, color properties when exposed to light and their prevalence in nature.
This whitepaper describes how to differentiate between synthetic and real gemstones as well as between salt and freshwater pearls.
