Precious Natural Red Coral - Five pointers to a Smart Buy

Natural Organic Red Coral

Precious coral is captivating gemstone – with its smooth surface and robust color, the gemstone is absolute imagery of vitality and symbolizes youthful vigor.

However, distinguishing precious coral from its look-alikes can be a hard task. For a layman the slick sales pitch and attractive form and designs can be overwhelming and could lead to a misjudged purchase. One has to be still more careful if the objective is planetary gem therapy. So how does one identify a precious coral? Here is a quick guide to a foolproof purchase -

- Nothing can replace lab certification. A good vendor will give you a certified gem that lists the verified properties of the specimen.

- Precious red coral measures 3.5 on Moh’s scale and has a specific gravity of 2.65- 2.68 which will be clearly stated on the certificate helping in identification. Precious red coral is an opaque gemstone, it has a refractive index of 1.48.

- Don’t get taken in by fancy names like Taiwanese coral. While previous coral does exist there, it faces a crisis as reefs are threatened by pollution. An entire plastic coral industry has come up which produces look-alikes that could confound anyone!

Available Easily Taiwan plastic coral - How do you distinguish?

- Bamboo coral, which is also a coral found growing in the sea, but not precious coral is dyed and palmed off to unsuspecting buyers. Make sure you ask the right questions and do a minimum homework before making a valuable purchase.

Bamboo Coral

- Precious red coral will display a wood grain texture under magnification, which may not show in case of resin filled, wax treated coral, as it would give a texture too good to be true.

A variety of techniques can be use to determine if the color of a piece of coral is dyed or is a fake. However, these techniques like acetone exposure or heating will destroy the specimen being tested! A lab report and a trusted source always hold the key to a good buy.

Featured today is a natural and organic red coral of 4.94 carats. The rich Mediterranean ox blood color of the coral and the smooth blemish free surface of the gem allow it to stand apart. The cabochon cut red coral is from Italy and meets all the criteria for a premium jyotish quality gem.

Natural red coral or moonga is the gemstone of planet Mars/ Mangal and is used to harness its extraordinary powers.

Selected Rings, Pendants and Talismans made available to Gemstoneuniverse.com patrons in February 2013

Gemstoneuniverse.com Table Natural Organic Red Coral Gemstone Facts

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