Certification
Certification Options
Every stone over 1.00 ct ships with an independent laboratory report naming origin and clarity enhancement. Smaller stones can be sent for certification on request before they ship.
Certification answers origin and treatment. What those answers mean in practice is covered in oil and clarity enhancement, and applied to live stock on loose stones.
Start here
A report answers three separate questions — know which one you paid for
“Certified” on its own means almost nothing. Laboratories answer different questions at different prices, and the cheap answer is not the one that protects you when you are paying a premium. These are the three:
| The question | What it is called | When you need it |
|---|---|---|
| Is it an emerald at all? | Identification | Always, for anything of consequence. Separates natural emerald from synthetic (flux-grown and hydrothermal), from glass, from doublets, and from green beryl that is not emerald. |
| What has been done to it? | Treatment / clarity enhancement | Always. This is the field that most affects price and the easiest one to misstate. The scale runs none, minor, moderate, significant — and a good report also names the filler. |
| Where did it come from? | Origin determination | When you are paying a Colombian premium. The most expensive, most specialised and most genuinely arguable of the three. |
Who to trust
The laboratories that carry weight
There are a great many laboratories, and a printed card from an unknown one is worth roughly the paper. For emeralds, these are the names a trade buyer or an insurer will accept without argument:
| Laboratory | Strongest for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| GIA | Identification and treatment | The global reference for consistency, and the easiest report for a third party to verify. Origin determination offered as a separate service. |
| AGL | Detailed colour and treatment analysis | American Gemological Laboratories. Long respected in coloured stones; its detailed reports go further on colour description and degree of enhancement than most. |
| Gübelin | Origin determination | Swiss. Among the most authoritative origin opinions in the world, with a research-grade reference collection behind it. Priced accordingly. |
| SSEF | Origin determination | Swiss Gemmological Institute. The other name at the top of the origin field. |
| GRS | Trade-facing reports | Widely used and recognised across the international trade, particularly in Asia. |
Origin determination is an expert opinion, not a measurement. It rests on inclusion patterns and trace-element chemistry, and reputable laboratories can and sometimes do disagree on the same stone — particularly between geologically similar deposits. A report saying Colombia is strong evidence. It is not a guarantee, and a seller who presents it as one is overselling it.
The Colombian question
What makes an origin opinion possible at all
Colombian emeralds formed differently from most of the world’s. Rather than in pegmatites or mica schists, they grew hydrothermally in calcite veins running through black shale in the Eastern Cordillera. That unusual setting leaves traces a laboratory can read.
- Three-phase inclusions — tiny cavities holding liquid, a gas bubble and a solid salt crystal together. Strongly characteristic of Colombian material, and the classic first thing a gemologist looks for.
- Trace-element chemistry — measured ratios that differ between deposits and are compared against the laboratory’s reference set.
- Associated minerals and growth features — what else is trapped inside, and the pattern of how the crystal grew.
None of this is visible to you across a table or in a photograph. That is the whole reason origin reports exist, and the whole reason an origin premium without one is a claim you are simply choosing to believe.
Money
When a report is worth paying for — and when it is not
We would rather you spent your money on the stone. A full report with origin can consume a serious fraction of a smaller stone’s value, and no report makes a mediocre emerald a good one. Our honest guidance:
| Situation | Worth it? |
|---|---|
| A modest stone bought to wear, treatment disclosed in writing | Usually not. Take the written disclosure and spend the difference on the stone itself. |
| Any stone sold as untreated or no oil | Yes, always. This is the single largest premium in the emerald market and the single easiest claim to make falsely. Never pay it on a seller’s word alone. |
| Any stone carrying a Colombian origin premium of consequence | Yes. You are paying specifically for a fact only a laboratory can establish. |
| A significant purchase, or one you intend to insure or resell | Yes. Insurers and future buyers will ask, and a report obtained now is far cheaper than proving provenance later. |
| A rough specimen bought for the crystal rather than to cut | Rarely. Identification may be worth it; origin usually is not. |
If you want a report, ask us before the stone ships. Submitting it while it is still in our hands costs you the laboratory fee and some weeks. Submitting it after delivery costs you insured shipping in both directions on top. We will submit any stone to any laboratory you name and forward the invoice unchanged — we do not mark up laboratory fees.
Questions
Reports and verification
The seller showed me a certificate. Is that enough?
Check three things before it means anything. First, which laboratory — an unfamiliar name carries no weight. Second, whether the report number and the stated measurements actually match the stone in front of you, because reports do get paired with different stones. Third, whether it states treatment at all, since a report that only identifies the species tells you nothing about the field that most affects price. Most major laboratories let you verify a report number directly with them, so do that rather than trusting a PDF.
Does a report guarantee the value or price?
No, and a report that states a value should make you suspicious. Reputable gemological laboratories describe and identify — they do not appraise. Valuation is a separate service from a qualified appraiser, usually for insurance, and it is an opinion of replacement cost rather than what anyone will actually pay you.
Can synthetic emeralds fool a jeweller?
Good flux-grown and hydrothermal synthetics can absolutely fool a confident amateur and sometimes a professional working without proper equipment — they are real emerald chemically, just grown in a factory rather than in rock. Separating them reliably means microscopy and often spectroscopy. This is the clearest case for a report on anything represented as natural at a natural price.
What does MultiGen Minerals certify itself?
Nothing. We are a dealer, not a laboratory, and treating our own opinion as certification would be worthless to you. What we publish is our assessment, plainly labelled as ours — origin, colour grade and enhancement level — alongside any independent laboratory report a stone already carries. Where a stone has not been tested, we say so rather than implying it has.