Ruby Or Garnet How To Tell

The rainbow image you see within a garnet will be much more clear due to its singly refractive property.

Ruby or garnet how to tell.

Tell by the color and the shine. Even though garnet is also a gemstone it is a semiprecious gemstone with a significantly low value compared to ruby. Now look at the rainbow or spectrum and if there are yellow and green bands then your stone is likely not a ruby. If you are mistaking a ruby for a red garnet this is an easy way to distinguish between the two as rubies will not display green or yellow bands.

Perform a hardness test. Ruby is one of the four most precious stones in the world along with diamond sapphires and emerald. If the light reflects a rainbow of colors including bands of yellow and green the odds are you are looking at a garnet. A real garnets will change colors in both lights.

A ruby is a doubly refractive stone so it refracts light in a much different way than a garnet which is singly refractive. Another way to determine if your stone is a ruby or a garnet is to examine the spectrum. In terms of their colors while a garnet has a wide variety of colors other than red such as green brown and orange a ruby is usually red. Real rubies glow with a deep vivid almost stoplight red.

They are light but not bright if the gem is more of a dark red then it may be garnet instead of a ruby. To do this hold your stone up to a bright light source and move it around until the stone creates a rainbow. If you are holding a ruby the rainbow image you see will be blurred and appear almost as one rainbow on top of another. This simply means that a ruby is a more durable mineral than the garnet.

Since the most common color of garnet is red it is important to know how to spot the difference of ruby and garnet. Garnets are a 7 7 5 on the mohs scale. Fake gems are often dull. Rubies red corundums that contains aluminum oxide and chromium generally are more valuable than red garnets so it is important to be able to tell the difference between them when buying gemstones.

Garnets can be be found in a variety of colors. Starting with their toughness a garnet has only been given 6 5 to 7 5 on the mohs scale while a ruby has been given a solid 9 0. Holding up a garnet to the light can assist you in determining whether or not you are looking at a garnet or a ruby. This is because a ruby s makeup is such that it absorbs yellow and green and will not reflect them in that.