by Richard W. Wise, G.G.
©2012
Everyone is familiar with the old sayings; seeing is believing and a picture is worth a thousand words. In the internet age, however, I'd suggest prospective gem buyers embrace another old saying, "believe half of what you see!" Yes, thanks to Photoshop coupled with the ability to select a broad range of lighting options at varying color temperatures, a picture can tell a thousand lies. Despite this, gem buying on the internet has increased a thousand fold aided by a crop of gem forums where hobbyists, prospective grooms and gem collectors gather to share information and critique gems on offer.
Many of the participants in these forums believe that a gemstone is just another commodity that qualities are uniform and prices follow some sort of median so that if most of the 1 carat sapphires they see online are $3,000 a carat then any stone with a price tag above that number is, by definition, expensive and overpriced. As I have said in my book, Secrets of The Gem Trade, and other places, this is simply not true. The prospective buyer who limits himself to images and median prices is doubly mistaken assuming that quality is his goal. This myth is reinforced by largely untrained online gurus who claim the mystical power to judge the quality of a gemstone by simply evaluating an image and by consumers who simply want to believe them rather than doing some of the tedius work of actually comparing stones.
As gemstone approach theoretical perfection in color/cut/clarity and crystal, smaller differences in those criteria make for larger and larger differences in price. At the same time, those subtle difference are extremely difficult to capture in an online image. An image can tell a lot about a gemstone with regard to clarity and color, I can often see enough to pass on a given stone, however, I cannot see enough to make a firm buying decision. From this point on, actual comparison is absolutely essential.