Hofer Gemstone COLORCARD

$25.00

Category:

Description

This product has been around since the early 1990’s, but it has never been recognized for its importance.  As you change lighting environments from Warm White to Cool White to Daylight many colored gems and some diamonds change their apparent visual color.  While this was important when all we had was incandescent and fluorescent fixtures along with daylight, the advent of LED lighting has made the issue of far greater importance and interest.  Our eyes mix various wavelengths of the spectrum to visualize the color of objects, including gems.  LED’s add special confusion in this regard because not all LED’s make the visual color temperature which we perceive from the same stronger or weaker wavelengths.  Depending on their CRI, their Color Rendering Index, LED lighting can really trick you in the accurate observation and grading of body color.  This can be a very costly error for dealers and even the smartest of expert consumers.

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The cure is to become familiar with how the three elements of the Hofer COLORCARD demonstrate when you are in a lighting environment such as the one you use at your office or at home, or if you are in a lighting environment which may throw off your color vision or the ability to use your master gemstones to grade a potential purchase.  Gemologists often use cubic zirconia with varying degrees of yellow tint to determine the color of diamonds, but the metamerisim present in CZ is vastly different that that of diamond.  Metamerism is a shift in perceived color due to a change in the lighting spectrum strengths, perceived color temperature and now the color rendering index of LED lighting.

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See BOTH of these links below for articles written about this product:

Color Card article publication

Color Our World article

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In short, if you want to be made aware that your lighting environment is the correct one that you are accustomed to, then you need this small and durable little tool.  It is compact, affordable and comes with its own folding case.  You have included an article from 1992 which was published in the Australian Gemmologist magazine in 1992 and a couple letters of explanation from Steven Hofer, the creator of the COLORCARD, and a worldwide renowned colored diamond gemologist.