Water Test If you have a loose diamond to test, fill a regular glass about ¾ of the way full with water. Gently drop the diamond into the glass. If the diamond sinks to the bottom, it's real. If it floats at the surface or just underneath, it's likely a fake.
As straightforward as it sounds, fill a glass of water at home to roughly three-quarters full. Separate the stone so that it is loose, and drop it into the water. Diamonds are highly dense and a genuine gem will sink to the bottom – every time. If it hovers to the surface or only partially sinks, then it is a replica.
By holding a diamond close to a source of light, such as a flashlight, you can tell whether or not it's real. Watch closely for the shimmers of light that shine from the stone. A real diamond will reflect light easily, and provide you with a disco ball or rainbow-like display.
Visit A Trusted Jeweler
Many jewelers will appraise your stone free of charge and experts will often be able to tell immediately if your diamond is authentic or not. If your stone came with a certificate, your jeweler should be happy to take a look at it and tell you whether it is from a trustworthy source.
The free 4Cs app for Android is downloadable in English and Simplified Chinese. The GIA app is also available for iOS. A retailer version, designed for use at point of sale, is downloadable for free from GIA's retailer support site www.retailer.gia.edu.
Scratch the Diamond Crystal on a Corundum
In order to use corundum to test the authenticity of the diamond, hold the corundum up against the suspected diamond and see the diamond to scratch a line on the corundum by rubbing the two gems together. If your gem does scratch corundum, it's definitely diamond.
The way that diamonds reflect light is unique: the inside of a real diamond should sparkle gray and white while the outside should reflect a rainbow of colors onto other surfaces. A fake diamond, on the other hand, will have rainbow colors that you can see inside the diamond as well.
There is nothing that can scratch a diamond except another diamond. A mineral like talc, on the other hand, is a 1 on the scale. You could scratch it with any hard material, even your fingernail. Natural talc is one of the softest minerals in the world.
The differences between Natural Diamonds and Lab Grown Diamonds cannot be seen with the naked eye. Natural Diamonds have tiny amounts of nitrogen, while Lab Grown Diamonds have no nitrogen. This is actually one of the signifiers gemologists use to identify if a diamond is lab grown or natural.
The test is to simply scratch the loose stone against a mirror. The idea is that if the stone is hard enough to scratch the mirror, it's probably a diamond. In terms of the Mohs scale, however, this test proves inaccurate. The Mohs scale is a scientific measurement of mineral hardness.
Ultraviolet Light: About 30% of diamonds will glow blue under ultraviolet lights such as black light. Fake diamonds, on the other hand, will glow other colors or not at all.
Fake diamonds do not reflect spectral rays from the beam of the flashlight. This is because a diamond's refractive index is high; it makes the white light entering the diamond split into multiple colors before it exits on the other side of the stone.
Place the gemstones in a glass of water and watch. If it floats, then it is probably a fake stone. Real diamonds will sink to the bottom of the glass, while cubic zirconia will float to the surface.
What is the stamp for diamonds on a ring? It depends on whether or not the diamond is natural or lab-created. If it's a real diamond, you can expect to see a stamp with carats and points. If it's made of synthetic gemstones like Cubic Zirconia, you may see a CZ mark.
If the small stones on your diamond engagement ring are between 1 and 2 points (0.01-0.02 carats), it may be appraised at a price range of $300 to $700 per carat. Larger chips or stones at 0.10 carats may result in you being able to get $1000 or more for your jewelry if the diamonds score high on clarity and color.
Artificial diamonds are chemically and optically the same as diamonds that are found under the earth, which were formed billions of years ago. Thus, they are not any easier to scratch than other diamonds. These diamonds are visually indistinguishable from real diamonds.
If it scratches the glass, chances are good that the diamond is real. But, it's important to know that the scratch test could damage your diamond in the process. It's also not the most effective way to see if your diamonds is real since other gemstones can have the same effect on the glass.
A fake diamond will have rainbow colors that you can see inside the diamond. “People have a misconception that diamonds sparkle like a rainbow, but they don't,” Hirsch said. “They do sparkle, but it's more of a gray color.
An ideal cut diamond shows only a few intensely bright flashes in direct sunlight. A diamond that actually looks good in sunlight splits those few flashes up into ten or twenty smaller sparkles.
A dirty stone doesn't sparkle because light simply can't enter the diamond and causes it to appear dull. So, if you notice your diamond jewelry getting cloudier overtime, it's likely due to a dirty surface and there's an easy fix to restore their luster.
No other colorless gems show such a magnetic response except some synthetic Diamonds, which can be ferromagnetic. Other than GGG, magnetic testing cannot be used to distinguish natural colorless Diamonds from colorless imitations.
The most common mineral that looks like a diamond is quartz and it is hexagonal form. When looking down on the crystals from the top, with the point of the crystal aimed at your eye, quartz will have six sides and a diamond will have four sides. If you see six sides than you probably found quartz.