Chances are, if you are buying a diamond ring for someone, you want your diamond to be special, durable, and most of all, authentic. With all of the imitation diamond jewelry on the market today, it is wise to know a few helpful hints on how to determine a real diamond from a fake.
Learn the tools of the trade and gather a few of these easy tricks up your sleeve. It is time to put your diamond to the test.
1. Real Diamonds are flawed; fakes are not.
While some might think that the goal in purchasing the perfect diamond is to find one that is virtually flawless—that is not always the case. Carefully crafted Cubic Zirconia sports absolutely no imperfections, making it easy to label as fake. Real, pure diamonds contain tiny ‘flaws’ which oftentimes creates a brilliance that cannot be seen in fakes.
2. Look inside your Diamond.
Much like looking inside a crystal ball, looking inside your diamond will reveal the truth about its true components and its authenticity. The key is: Real diamonds always have something inside. If you look into your diamond with a 1200x microscope, you should be able to see tiny inclusions within the stones infrastructure. If you hold the diamond in front of your eye and look through its side, you should not be able to see through it, nor should it look to be one clear, unified color. If the stone exerts zero degrees of brilliance, and if you can see through it from the side, then it is definitely fake.
3. Look at the Setting & Mount.
Since stones made up of imitation substances such as Cubic Zirconia and Moissanite are so much cheaper than diamonds, they are usually set in less expensive metals. Chances are, a fake diamond would not be set in real gold.
4. Check the Wear and Tear of the Stone.
Real diamonds have remarkable durability and a hardened sharpness that is strong enough to scratch glass. If there or any scratches or nicks on the surface of your Diamond, or if you can make them, then your diamond is not real.
Simple Two-Minute Tests
1. The Reading Test.
If your diamond is not mounted, set it on a newspaper. If you can see through it at all, even if you just see distorted black smudges instead of clearly-marked letters, than your diamond is a fake. Real diamonds have so many intricacies in their infrastructure that it is impossible for light to pass all the way through them without being first refracted.
2. The Sandpaper Test.
Diamonds are the hardest known substance. That being said, it is impossible for real diamond jewelry to be scratched. Using either wet or dry sandpaper, test your diamond by scratching it vigorously on the brittle surface of the paper. If it becomes nicked, it is surely a fake.
3. The Sparkle Test.
View your diamond from the top, then from the side. Compare the shiny, reflective qualities that you may have noticed when looking down onto the face of your diamond, with the way your diamond shines and reflects when being viewed at a side angle. Imitation diamonds are purposely crafted to look like real diamonds from a birds-eye-view, but are less commonly apt to carry those same characteristics throughout the rest of the stone.