Diamonds ” Are They Real or Fake?

By Joy McDougle

Many of us love diamonds even though costs can be prohibitive. Naturally we are always looking for a bargain when we go diamond shopping. Online auction sites, private Internet sales, estate sales, and online jewelers are popular places to look. For the most part these are all great options, and shoppers can find the deal of a lifetime. Still, there’s the question haunting us of whether or not we found a real diamond.

In actuality, this question is a good one, especially with the manmade diamonds available today being so strikingly similar to the real thing. In fact, most people cannot tell the difference between a fake and the Real McCoy. Some manmade materials used for making diamonds include clear crystals, colorless gems, and simple glass. With these types of materials, spotting a fake diamond is easy. However, now with new materials such as cubic zirconia and Moissanite, coupled with technology, telling the difference between fake and real becomes far more challenging.

If you find a diamond you want to purchase, have a jeweler or diamond cutter take a close look at it. This is harder to manage when you’re shopping at an online auction, but you should figure out a way to have the stone checked. Paying a lot of money for something that turns out to be an imitation could cause you a lot of grief and frustration. If you think someone is offering to sell you a cubic zirconium, there are a few ways to check it out.

One good test is simply to breathe on the gem. If it’s a cubic zirconium, then the fog will stay on it for a while. If it’s truly a diamond, it will clear up right away. Another method is to try writing on it with an ink pen. Ink balls up on a cubic zirconium and makes a line on a diamond. One more thing to try is to turn the stone over and try reading a newspaper through the back. If you can easily make out the print, then you probably are holding an imitation. This wouldn’t be true however, with a real diamond that was cut shallowly.

Cubic zirconium weigh about 55% more than a similarly sized diamond. Try to compare it to a diamond you know is authentic by weighing both of them on a carat or gram scale. Also, real diamonds look fluorescent blue under black light. Most manmade stones will not show the blue color. As for quality, the bluer the diamond, the worse the quality. You may know your stone is real, but it may not be as good as you expected.

You can also place the stone under a magnifying glass. Look at the facets from the top and see how they are joined. In real diamonds the facets have sharp rather than rolled edges. The girdles should be faceted or frosty, rather than clear looking. If they are too resinous or slippery, you know the stone is not a real diamond. These tips should help you make sure you get your money’s worth when you buy a diamond.

Copyright 2006, Joy McDougle, All Rights Reserved. This article may be published on web sites or in newsletters provided this notice and the resource box is included without ammendment.

Joy McDougle provides a range of resources at her web site: Raja Diamonds, where you will find information that will help you on many issues on how to buy a great diamond. Why not take a look: http://www.rajadiamonds.com

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