As hard as Diamonds

Diamonds are cherished not only because of their beauty but also for their long lasting durable qualities. They are used in Jewellery such as engagement rings as they do not wear away and will last a life time.  Unfortunately these sparkling beauties are expensive and so other clear diamond like materials have been developed to look like diamonds.

Diamond brooch

The first of these diamond imitations was probably glass, Clear quarts has been used for centuries and during the Georgian era paste a high lead content glass was developed. Other imitation diamonds include Cubic zirconia and recently Moissanite.

These diamond imitations can be very attractive and are often set into jewellery.  The main problem with them is that when we are looking to buy a piece of vintage jewellery we need to know if the piece is set with a diamond or an imitation. Traditionally it was easy for a jeweller to tell the difference  between a real diamond and any of the imitations as an electronic  diamond tester could be used.  nowadays we need to be a little more careful as Moissanite test the same as diamonds on traditional diamond testers.

Today I was looking at a ring prior to adding it to the shop. Hallmarked as 9 carat gold and with crystal clear diamond looking stones and it tested as diamonds. But to me something seemed wrong. The stones were just a bit to sparkly so I looked at them even more closely than normal and had to come to the unfortunate ( for me) conclusion that these stones are Moissanite.

Moissanite Ring

How did I come to this conclusion? Diamonds and Moissanite deflect light differently and if you shine a bright light into a Mossanite stone you can see a rainbow like effect as the light plays across the facets. This effect is not seen with real diamonds.

Moissanite is largely a man made material which has only been available in commercial quantities since the 1990s . We must still check our antique and vintage diamond like jewellery in case one of the stones has been replaced with Moissanite which has a much lower value.