You can see into a raw diamond but you cannot see through it. In raw form, they usually look like pale colored glass with hints of yellow or brown hues.
To the uneducated eye, rough diamonds look more like a shard of glass that can be found anywhere. They are dull, oily looking and come in many colors. Rough diamonds are revered for their pure, untouched natural state. It is difficult for the layman to know or understand the value of a rough diamond.
A raw uncut diamond is a stone that has not been cut or polished by a professional and has no specific shape or size. Their quality is relatively high after mining, but they must be cut and polished to be used in jewellery. Raw uncut diamonds tend to have a brown or yellowish tint to a high degree.
Diamonds found at the Crater are typically smooth and well rounded. Their shape resembles a polished stone with smooth sides and rounded edges. Size: The average size of a diamond is about the size of a paper match head, approximately 20-25 points weight.
In this raw form, rough diamonds usually look like lumps of pale, colored glass. Although colorless or near colorless diamonds are a standard for cut, faceted, and polished diamonds, rough diamonds often carry some hints of color.
Perform a scratch test. Scrape your gem against corundum and if it makes a scratch, you've got a real diamond on your hands. Diamonds have a density of 3.5 - 3.53 g/cm3, which you can test by dividing the weight of the stone by the weight of the stone suspended in water. Or, take your gem into a professional.
A real diamond appears gray and white inside (brilliance) when held to the light and can reflect rainbow colors (fire) onto other surfaces. A fake diamond will display rainbow colors within the stone when held up to light.
Most states will allow finders to keep the property if the owner does not show up to claim it after a certain time. Failure to report a found item can lead to criminal charges. So, unless you're at Crater of Diamonds State Park, you cannot keep a found diamond.
Rough diamonds are revered for their pure, untouched state and natural beauty. Their value lies both in their beauty and raw material and many do not know that actually it is the cost of the rough diamond that determines the price of a polished diamond.
Rough diamonds usually resemble lumps of pale-colored glass. They often have an oily appearance and don't sparkle. Very few rough diamonds are actually gem quality. Only those with the very palest colors or who are colorless will pass the test.
Moissanite is an interesting gemstone, because it is both synthetic, and a diamond simulant. It is not, however, a synthetic diamond. It is a diamond simulant because it is made to look like a diamond. It is synthetic because it is made in a lab, but it is synthetic moissanite.
Slightly Included category (SI) diamonds have noticeable inclusions that are easy, or very easy for a trained grader to see when viewed under 10× magnification. The SI category is divided into two grades; SI1 denotes a higher clarity grade than SI2. These may or may not be noticeable to the naked eye.
Before a diamond is processed, a diamond may look like a dull piece of glass. There are several different diamond processing methods used worldwide; however, most diamonds are taken from the mine to a processing plant for cleaning and sorting.
The Floating Test
Drop the diamond into the water. True diamonds have high density and should quickly sink to the bottom of the glass. Fake diamonds are not as thick, and therefore, more likely to float in water.
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.
Do Jewelers Swap Out Diamonds? Swapping diamonds would be extremely bad for any jeweler's business, and any accredited, independent jeweler will do everything possible to avoid it. This includes only removing your diamond from your ring when absolutely necessary.
When a diamond is mined, nature has already determined color, clarity, and most of carat weight. But a rough diamond just looks like a transparent rock. It doesn't sparkle. It doesn't flash in rainbows.
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 a very sparkly diamond, you'll see intense glints of light when it moves. As light enters the diamond, it reflects from facet to facet, creating an endless series of reflections or a hall-of-mirrors effect. Certain styles and shapes of diamond cuts are designed for maximum sparkle, such as round cut diamonds.
Make sure to use bright lighting and that no objects are casting a shadow on your diamond. If you can read the letters from the newspaper — whether they appear blurry or not — then the diamond is fake. But if the diamond is real, its facets will refract light in multiple directions instead of a straight line.
Using cold water is a much simpler and safer way to test the validity of a diamond. If you place the stone into water, a real diamond will sink to the bottom due to the density. Fake diamonds are far more likely to float or bobble around.
Minerals are assigned a number between 1 and 10 on the Mohs Hardness Scale to describe how resistant to scratching they are. Diamonds are given the highest number, a 10. 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.