Ruby Or Garnet How To Tell

Since the most common color of garnet is red it is important to know how to spot the difference of ruby and garnet.

Ruby or garnet how to tell.

Ruby is one of the four most precious stones in the world along with diamond sapphires and emerald. Another way to determine if your stone is a ruby or a garnet is to examine the spectrum. The rainbow image you see within a garnet will be much more clear due to its singly refractive property. This is because a ruby s makeup is such that it absorbs yellow and green and will not reflect them in that.

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. Garnets are a 7 7 5 on the mohs scale. They are light but not bright if the gem is more of a dark red then it may be garnet instead of a ruby. Perform a hardness test.

If it is a real ruby however know that darker stones are usually worth more than lighter stones. If the light reflects a rainbow of colors including bands of yellow and green the odds are you are looking at a garnet. 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 simply means that a ruby is a more durable mineral than the garnet.

View the garnet in both natural and artificial light. Garnets can be be found in a variety of colors. To do this hold your stone up to a bright light source and move it around until the stone creates a rainbow. Pyrope almandine and andradite are the most common red garnets.

Now look at the rainbow or spectrum and if there are yellow and green bands then your stone is likely not a ruby. A real garnets will change colors in both lights. 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. Tell by the color and the shine.

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. If you are holding a ruby the rainbow image you see will be blurred and appear almost as one rainbow on top of another. A ruby is a doubly refractive stone so it refracts light in a much different way than a garnet which is singly refractive. Real rubies glow with a deep vivid almost stoplight red.