Garnet/Gomed gemstone can be found in every color except blue colour, but the most commonly known is red colour. Garnet/Gomed’s Gemstone is also the birthstone for January and the official gemstone of New York, America. Many varieties of Garnet/Gomed gemstone can be found in the U.S. of America and are a popular gem for jewelry makers. The easiest way to identify a Garnet/Gomed Gemstone is by eye. Instructions
Pick up the Garnet/Hessonite Gemstone and hold it very close to your eye, so close that when you blink your eye lashes touch the stone. The Garnet/Hessonite stone needs to be close enough so that you can actually look through the table. The table is the top part of a faceted gemstone.
Look through the table at a bright light source 6 feet away. This light source could be a window or a bright lamp. The refractive properties of Garnet/Hessonite gemstone will cause rainbows and the properties of these rainbows can determine whether or not this stone is a Garnet/Gomed gemstone.
Roll and twist the Garnet/Gomed gemstone in front of your eye and focus on one large rainbow. Garnet/Gomed gemstone display almost every color of the rainbow. You should observe wedding bands of yellow color, green color, orange color, red color, and blue color. Pay particular attention to the yellow color and Green Color wedding bands. If you are misunderstanding a ruby for a red Garnet/Gomed gemstone, this is an easy way to discriminate between the two, as ruby gemstone's will not display yellow color or green color wedding bands.
View the Garnet/Gomed gemstone in both natural and artificial light. Real Garnet/Gomed gemstone gemstones will change colors in both lights.
Perform a hardness test. Hessonite/Gomed gemstones are a 7 to 7.5 on the Moh's Scale. Steel has a hardness of 5 of the Moh's Scale, so you should be able to scratch steel with a Hessonite/Gomed gemstone, but you should not be able to scratch a Hessonite/Gomed gemstone with something like a steel blade. Quartz is also a 7 to 7.5 on the Moh's Scale, so if you have a piece handy you can test with quartz. You should not be able to scratch quartz with the Hessonite/Gomed gemstone or vice versa. If you can scratch the stone with either the quartz or the steel, chances are it is not a Hessonite/Gomed gemstone.
Contact an expert for definitive identification which has instrumentation for measurement density, numerous optical properties and thermal electrical phenomenon.