From the studio · Stones, plainly
Lab grown and mined emerald, side by side
The short answer: Put a good lab grown emerald next to a good mined one in daylight and most people cannot pick the mined stone. The lab stone is usually cleaner, usually greener, and roughly a fifth of the price. The mined stone carries a story the lab stone does not.
What we saw on the bench
We shot the two on the same day, same light, same tweezers. The lab stone reads slightly more saturated because it has fewer inclusions scattering light. The mined stone has a garden inside it, and some people fall in love with exactly that.
The price gap
A clean two carat mined Colombian emerald is a serious purchase. The same look grown costs about a fifth as much, which means it can be a pair of earrings rather than a single stone kept in a safe.
How to choose
If the point of the object is provenance, buy mined and buy smaller. If the point is the color on a person, buy grown and buy the size that makes you happy. There is no wrong answer, only an uninformed one.