A couple years ago I went through a phase of buying from auction websites and accumulated some gemstones and jewelry. I'll be totally honest, it was mainly just an attempt to get some good deals on some stable assets. But I ended up getting a little obsessed with gem identification. I bought several books — the Inclusion Photoatlas collection, Gem Identification Made Easy, and a few others — in an effort to learn. I also bought an Ade gemological toolkit along with some other tools to practice observation and taking measurements.
What I came to realize is that learning gemology is kind of hard. It's time consuming, requires a lot of practice, and a lot of organizational skills and knowledge to do well. I'm not a student, although I think I'd like to be one day. But I've always been a bit of a self-teacher for better or for worse.
Anyway, I ended up trying to build a tool for myself to help learn. I wanted something where I could enter my measurements and the app would narrow down the possible gemstones to specific candidates. That way I could identify my own gemstones, practice using the tools, and just enjoy the process a little more. For me, having to go through textbooks or databases was just too cumbersome for a casual hobby.
Well, that tool turned into a lot more. I decided I wanted a way to store a collection of gemstones within the app. And that's when it kind of clicked for me that maybe I could share this with other people. So I started building on top of those core features — report generation, flashcards for studying, an accompanying website with a full reference database, an API, a methodology page explaining exactly how the identification engine works. At a certain point I poured so much time into it that I figured I might as well productize it.
Full disclosure: I'm a first time and part-time developer and I built this app with heavy help from Claude. The development, the data auditing, all of it. I'm a software developer, not a gemologist — I used AI to cross-reference the gem database against GIA, SSEF, and other gemological literature dozens of times from different angles. I think that's actually one of the more interesting parts of the project, but I also know it means the data needs real eyes on it. AI can catch inconsistencies but it can't replace experience with actual stones.
I've really struggled with actually releasing it. I respect gemologists and I'm not trying to replace them. I see this as a learning tool for students and a workflow app for professionals. But in order for it to really become useful, it needs feedback from actual users. I absolutely expect there will be issues, quirks, and contradictions in the data but I plan to be very responsive to criticism and advice.
I appreciate anyone who decides to support the project, but it won't bother me if people just create new accounts every week to use the trial version lol. There's no credit card required to get started. There's a web version and also an iOS version that I finally got approved a few days ago — I'm pretty proud of that one, it's my first app on iOS. I'm also working on an Android version but that requires testers and I haven't been able to work on that, yet. If anyone's interested in that, let me know.
If you're a working gemologist and want to try it, email me and I'll give you free access for a year. I'd rather have your feedback than your money.
The web app is at [gemid-labs.com](https://gemid-labs.com). You can search "GemID Labs" on the App Store to find the iOS version. If you have any questions, you can email me at support@gemid-labs.com.