Real diamonds!

[edge1255]

Hi Folks, does anybody have any experience of using a diamond tester? They're on sale through the usual suspects, but seem VERY inexpensive, eg £7.50, including postage. Seem to consist of a very fine tip like a needle, and lots of LEDs. Just wondering if it would be worthwhile picking one up.

[fred]

I have a damn expensive professional one and it has been very useful. It paid for itself simply by identifying a blue diamond that I initially thought was a pale saphire. No idea if the cheap ones actually work very well though.

Unless you find feedback to the contrary at that price it's probably worth buying one on spec, especially if you have lots of stones to play with.

[skythepig]

I've had a £30 one for about five years and it works fine. If you have a lot of stones to check may be worth buying one. Similar to mine on amazon at about £27.99. Very easy to use.

[edge1255]

I've just ordered one of the cheapo testers, so I'll let you know how it goes. If anybody would like to donate some large diamonds to me to try it out please don't hesitate....

[slowsweep]

take your stones to any jeweller and they will check them for free

[Ladybird66]

And all these years I thought all you needed was a piece of glass !

[Shaz]

If only! Window glass generally has a hardness of 5 on the Moh's hardness scale, so anything over that will scratch it. eg. any of the quarts family.

[Shaz]

A few things to watch out for with diamond testers. The little probe measures the thermal conductivity of the stone you are testing (how quickly the stone takes away the heat from the tip). In freezing conditions stones like white sapphires/rubies could register as diamond. Likewise on a very hot day, it may not register a diamond as diamond.

Try and hold tip at right angle to the stone surface and press slightly, avoid touching the metal.
Happy testing.

[Iced Tiger]

I bought one a while back, seems to work well on the jewelry we already had.

[bigbeepbeep]

I bought one of those electronic testers very cheaply. It seems to work. *It's all about the speed of reaction rather than whether or not the led's light up; I'd use it in conjunction with the variety of other free tests you can use eg. scratching lines into glass, and the more discerning graphite pencil mark light-bending test is often used by jewellers to identify DIAMOND; Checking through a loupe for imperfections (invariably absent in fake gems) is another Test. Today Im still 100% certain that the bangle I found on my 3rd day out with my Fisher F2 ARE genuine diamonds as they were set in secure individual mountings, NOT glued in as the Jeweller wrongly claimed(!) They were silvered at the back *which is what they used to do with old jewellery as solid bangles don't let light through like a ring does*, the stones weren't size matched (another giveawy of fakery) nor were they perfectly matched in colour, ditto. Jewellers will not always tell you the correct answer at all, the guy I took my 48 stones to didn't even use a loupe to inspect them he just said "they're not real" because the backs were silvered. The bangle was found deeply buried under a 100_yr old tree in a forest, it took 5hrs to excavate it. See a Gemologist who will likely also assess them for free and be faar more likely to give you a correct answer. If you woant a certificate confirming authenticity you'll have to pay for that.

[Easylife]

The bangle was found deeply buried under a 100_yr old tree in a forest, it took 5hrs to excavate it.

Wow that's some going, imagine the disappointment if it was just a bit of scrap.

[sanjuro]

https://www.quicktest.co.uk/diamond-tes ... tm#warning

[fred]

https://www.quicktest.co.uk/diamond-tes ... tm#warning

That is a well written and very informative article on diamond testing.

[fred]

I bought one of those electronic testers very cheaply. It seems to work. *It's all about the speed of reaction rather than whether or not the led's light up; I'd use it in conjunction with the variety of other free tests you can use eg. scratching lines into glass, and the more discerning graphite pencil mark light-bending test is often used by jewellers to identify DIAMOND; Checking through a loupe for imperfections (invariably absent in fake gems) is another Test. Today Im still 100% certain that the bangle I found on my 3rd day out with my Fisher F2 ARE genuine diamonds as they were set in secure individual mountings, NOT glued in as the Jeweller wrongly claimed(!) They were silvered at the back *which is what they used to do with old jewellery as solid bangles don't let light through like a ring does*, the stones weren't size matched (another giveawy of fakery) nor were they perfectly matched in colour, ditto. Jewellers will not always tell you the correct answer at all, the guy I took my 48 stones to didn't even use a loupe to inspect them he just said "they're not real" because the backs were silvered. The bangle was found deeply buried under a 100_yr old tree in a forest, it took 5hrs to excavate it. See a Gemologist who will likely also assess them for free and be faar more likely to give you a correct answer. If you woant a certificate confirming authenticity you'll have to pay for that.

What was the bangle made of?