How do I tell what these are?

[airplay355]

Borderline hoard that I’ve kept after taking things out of broken/mangled jewelry. With the gold price so high, it was easier/faster to melt some things instead of fixing them and selling, especially since in NYC the payout is 96% of spot. Anyway, what do I do with all of this? How can I separate the valuable from the synthetic? I’ve done my best to separate theeasy things out, like imperfect old mine cut diamonds, the tiny emeralds with inclusions, dark sapphires with inclusions, etc.

Id like to make some wearable Things for family members, I just don’t want to invest time/money/effort for synthetics. I also don’t want to just hold onto stones that have value but that I won’t use. Separating diamonds from CZ or whatever else it might be is especially tricky for me.

Aside from hiring someone, what could I do? Refractometer and a conductivity gadget?

 

[Rfisher]

I have no experience with hobby gemmology to give advice other than hiring someone else that’s knowledgeable
But I do remember this post.
Hopeful it helpful.

You would do much better with a few simple tools and the book GEM Identification made Easy by Antoinette Matlins.

Or if you want to make your life even easier identifying gemstones buy the software:
Gemology Tools Professional https://www.gemologytools.com/index.html

With this program you enter what you know about the gem such as it's color, transparency, single or double refractive etc. and the program narrows down what the gem could be.

If you have a Dichroscope, Loupe, Chesea filter and add a refractometer, you can pretty much identify almost anything.

 

[airplay355]

Thanks! I’ll check those out. I guess for identifying synthetics I should get used to inclusions that indicate one way or the other?

unfortunately, that software is for an Microsoft operating system. I’ll try finding something that might work on an iPad.