A world leader in coloured gemstone, diamond and pearl testing
Get your items tested by us.
- Fast shipping and safe door-to-door delivery
- On-site testing in Bangkok, Hong Kong and USA
- Easy order and secure payments by credit card
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*Verify your SSEF report and download a digital copy at www.myssef.ch
Upcoming on-site testing
Get your gems tested during in Bangkok, Hong Kong and the United States.
Celebrating 50 years of SSEF
Some 150 industry leaders and opinion-makers from around the world gathered in Basel in September 2022 to celebrate the golden anniversary of SSEF.
Auction highlights
A selection of remarkable jewels recently tested by SSEF and sold at auction.
Become a gem expert
Since its successful beginning in 2001, SSEF’s education department has offered a broad spectrum of gemmological courses to thousands of students from industry, trade, and academia.
Discover our courses
- All levels of gemmology
- Large course collection of stones
- Leading gemmologists as lecturers
- Highly practical courses in small groups
We also provide tailored courses for individuals and companies.
Free online courses by SSEF
Understanding Gemstones
Start your journey to becoming a gem expert with these introductory online courses.
Facette
Facette is the annual magazine of the Swiss Gemmological Institute SSEF. 2023 marks its 28th issue. Starting as a humble leaflet with a few black & white pages in a very basic layout, Facette has evolved into a magazine rich in information about recent research findings and activities at SSEF.
Research at SSEF
Since its beginnings over 50 years ago, the Swiss Gemmological Institute SSEF has been a driving force and at the forefront of scientific innovation in gemmology. Our dedication to gemstone scientific research is an important foundation to our expertise and reliability in testing.
Hundreds of publications, presentations and much more!
Also follow our latest research in:
Led light boxes for standardized lighting of coloured stones and diamonds
In the past, coloured gemstones and diamonds were often examined in natural daylight, but reproducing such specific lighting conditions was challenging. Some impractical methods had been suggested, like grading only during specific hours or facing northward, especially during cloudy weather.
At the frontier of research: irradiation experiments on corundum
As is known in the gem trade, the colour of certain gems may be caused or influenced by the presence of colour centres (a type of defect in the crystal structure that can absorb light and thus result in colour, that can be present both in stable or unstable form).
Purple love
It is always a pleasure for our team to analyse gemstones which are not so common, or sometimes even very rare, but which may compete in beauty and quality (but often not in hardness) with the most prestigious classic gemstones.
Dark purple chrysoberyl
Since about three years, we see at SSEF occasionally chrysoberyl samples of very dark purplish to purplish brown colour, sometimes of quite impressive size (>10 ct). Based on chemical composition, these chrysoberyls show distinct concentration of chromium, but no evident change of colour, thus do not fit the criteria to be called alexandrite