Hi Lighting Gallery!

I am a writer for gemsociety.org, and I'm working on an article on artificial lighting for minerals/gems.

Believe it or not, there's no standard for lighting in the industry despite gems being quite sensitive to lights.  Even the labs that grade gems use different bulbs! 

If anyone has experience setting up lighting for a jewelry shop or mineral collection, I'd love to hear your recommendations!

In addition, the phase-out of traditional incandescent bulbs in the US has led to some questions in our forums.  Some gems change color from daylight to incandescent, and the standard is to grade the color change between these sources.  What bulbs would you recommend to replace this?

I look forward to your insight!

Addison

I don't really have any experience in this field, but what I can tell you is that self-ballasted mercury lamps are very common for gem displays. They combine the warm white color of an incandescent with a daylight-like color, and so they are used in these applications. You can get them here:
https://www.bulborama.com/SB-160-WATT-BR38-FLOOD-SPECTRA-BRITE-MERCURY-VAPOR-DISPLAY-LAMP-p472.html

What sort of mineral display is it?For fluorescing minerals alternating UV and white lights are excellent.For gems-Warm color CMH lamps may be good.Possibly white type HPS is another choice---then we have what is evil to some here--warm color LED.