Synthetic or the real thing?
Year after year the fakes are getting harder to distinguish. At Pease & Curren, although we do not claim to be gemologists, we continually upgrade our testing equipment to keep in step with the fast growing synthetic diamond market.
It used to be we could “frost” the stones. Frosting is a chemical process during which a stone “reacts” and turns a frosted white color if it not a diamond. This has worked well up until recent times.
The properties of Moissanite are similar to that of a diamond that most diamond testers are fooled. Moissanite’s density is so close to that of a diamond it is taken for a diamond on many occasions. We now have a Moissanite tester in house although we generally are asked to sort frosted, clear and colored only.
Synthetic Diamonds correspond closely to natural diamonds. So much so they cannot be identified from the thermo tester.
In addition, Synthetic diamonds are becoming more popular, we find ourselves consistently training our personnel to properly identify synthetic fakes. Here are some tips we give to our customers:
A real diamond:
Source: The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has developed ways to identify these diamonds. See the GIA article which includes a chart.