What is Imperial Topaz?

[Cave Keeper]

My Mom''s standards are too high for me! Showed her some 6-9 carat Rubies; she said they looked too small; many women are wearing much larger ones nowadays, she claimed.

So I decided to look at something cheaper, like Topaz. I know Blue Topaz is probably one of the most inexpensive gemstones. And I thought Imperial Topaz was supposed to be very, very expensive. Turns out perhaps this doesn''t seem to be the case nowadays.

I thought Imperial Topaz is supposed to be Champagne color (anyone has any example of what a Champagne color Imperial Topaz looks like?), but all I see range from pale lemon yellow to orange to reddish hues claiming to be Imperial Topaz. What''s happening? Are we being had?

I hope I''m not overkilling this topic, but is Yellow Topaz a Topaz color by itself; distinct from Imperial Topaz?

 

[Colored Gemstone Nut]

Topaz can occur in colorless and brown colors.The most sought after colors is the golden, orange, pink, and red colors which carry the imperial or precious designation. Some of the most sought after pieces being the pinks..

The impurity chromium produces the colors ranging from pink to red. A mixture of 2 different color centers and chromium produces the orangy topaz.

Other hues include reddish Orange with sherry Red, deep Pink, and a beatiful salmon or light sherry color...

Yellow Topaz, The term "Yellow" describing the hue is distictly different from Imperial Topaz which is more rare. Yellow Topaz is much less valued than the highly sought after Imperial...

True, Fine Imperial Topaz is very expensive. The dark-peach (reddish-orange) Topaz from Brazil which exhibits that "cocktail: red hue is the darkest rarest color in topaz which demands a premium.

A lot of the material is heat treated, usually to enhance (not change) the colour. Material can have distinctly reddish hues as it comes out of the ground, but the heat treatment just deepens them. Quite often, some of the oranges will turn pink , some of the larger orangy coloured crystals can have fairly deep red tips.....

Here''s some examples from past threads of some good looking stones...

 

[Colored Gemstone Nut]

Here''s those pic''s...

 

[Colored Gemstone Nut]

Here''s a nice topaz in a custom mans ring...

 

[Cave Keeper]

Wow, that''s a lot of examples! Thank you very much, John.

Someone told me champagne color is something like pale gold.

Then there''s the so-called champagne color body paint on many cars, but they look more grayish than pale gold. So I''m still slightly uncertain what champagne color Imperial Topaz should look like. Except that now I find out from you champagne color is not the most valuable color; that its something with more brown and red.

At this moment, I have to confess I only feel attracted to the color which looks closest to gold or even yellow. But Citrine seems to be able to display a richer (school bus yellow?) yellow than Imperial Topaz.