diamond testing

[Fishers Ghost]

A few years back I found a beautiful 14k marked ring with a beautiful main stone and smaller stones on the split shank. Had to wait for daylight to see the hallmark. Tested it with my cheap tester and it claimed it was diamonds. I was elated to have found my first diamond ring. Main stone appeared to be about a fuyll carat.

Took it to a local jewelry shop and the young lady looked at it carefully with her loupe then tested it and proclaimed that it was a diamond. She said it appeared to be a high quality diamond.

Happened to be in a jewelry shop in another state getting the battery in my watch, that i found at the beach, replaced. Young lady said that is an expensive watch and i told her no it was cheap as i found it detecting. She said her husband detected but never found anything but rusty junk.

Later i had to have the band fixed so i took a couple of my finds along to show her. The Jeweler was in and he wanted to look at my "diamond" ring. He studied it very carefully, tested it for diamond, studied it some more and then tested it for mossionite. It tested positive for mossionite.

Later i took it to another GIA certified gemologist and she after much examination and testing said it is a mossionite.[/quote]


I can understand some Jewellers not getting the ID correct (Not all jewellers are Gemmologists) diamond and moissanite will test the same on a normal electronic cheapie diamond tester, some claim to be able to separate diamond from moissanite but these can also get it wrong.I know coz I tried one out of curiosity. I binned it the following day.
Moissanite is very easy to identify by a half decent Gemmo with a 10x loupe and if necessary a microscope and refractometer. Also Moissanite is double refractive while diamond is single refractive. This alone will not ID the moissanite but it will at least tell you that the stone is not diamond and cause you to do further testing.

The larger the moissanite the easier it is to identify. The stone (silicon carbide) has a higher refractive index than diamond and transparent stones will display more fire (flashes and sparkle of rainbow colours)than diamond and the double refraction is easily visable. Small stones will be a bit more difficult to pin down.
So if your prized 2 carate diamond ring is very firery with rainbow colours it is likely not a diamond.

On the other hand Moissanite makes for some nice jewellery. It is very hard at 9.25 and has plenty of fire due to the higher refractive index than diamond and it is a hell of a lot less expensive. But then who wants to hand down an el cheapo moissanite to the Grand Kids.

 

[Champ Ferguson]

I have an innate..........'discomfort' with the gem world. I am a lifelong rockhound and retired geologist and all the made-up bs names for common minerals that the gem trade comes out with really puts me off. Pet Peeve, but I don't like it when people try to dupe others and take their money. I see the industry on a sliding scale with folks like GIA on one end and the Crystals Cure Aids and Everything Else on the other end. And mostly skewed towards the crystal end.

Intelligence, Experience, Science, and Professionalism is what I am looking for. If a person has graduated from an accepted school/whatever and knows the science, I am willing to accept his opinion and discuss it. If a person has long experience, yeah lets talk about it. If a person says 'I am a xxxxx'. Well that's not worth my time. That's why I always ask for quals and when someone seems intelligent, I inquire if he's GIA. Not being GIA isn't a knock, it just tells me what you aren't. Like I already knew you weren't a crystal hippie.

As to my skills, I can tell you with a great deal of certainty if a stone is natural or manmade. Lab grown diamond vs moissonite- fogettaboutit.
And other than finding them, I have no interest in diamonds of any flavor. I prefer rubies by far. Luckily so does my wife.

 

[Fishers Ghost]

Crystal Healing is a bit like Astrology........Total garbage.

In case you don't know what it stands for: FGAA means Fellow Of The Gemmological Association Of Australia. I also have great respect for qualified members of the GIA.
It was my interest in rocks from about age 3 that eventuated in my becoming a gemmologist.
My fav gem is emerald because when I look into an emerald with all of its inclusions through a microscope it is like looking into another universe. I am not fussed about flawless gems, I like to be able to see at least one inclusion

My primary interest in gemstones is in being able to identify them and to know what they are made from and how they were formed. The "How they were formed" led me to Geology which is an amazing and never ending world science