How to tell if a stone is a diamond? Pics in link

[Laethia]

Hiya!

Thanks to the help of PS-ers, my partner has ordered an e-ring with what is hopefully a gorgeous diamond!!I have to wait until mid-late august for it though so I've been keeping myself busy with some jewellery that I recently inherited from my late Grandmother.

A lot of it is very pretty costume jewellery but there are a few pieces that have what I know from family to be small diamonds in them. However, there are two pieces that I am not sure about. One is a trilogy ring with a hallmarked yellow gold band and platinum heads and tiny clear stones. I believe they may be diamonds due to the size of them (why would you make such small CZs?) and the fact that they are set in platinum. They also have a certain "life" to them!

The second piece is interesting. The band is yellow metal there is a hallmark on it but I can't make it out. Round white-ish stone in the middle with smaller round white-ish stones in a halo surrounding it. Some of the stones have a warm tone, others brighter. I took some photos of it, but unfortunately it was before I cleaned it. I used my phone to take the photos and am also not very good with a camera so hopefully its clear enough..

EDIT: Heres the pictures


Is there any way to tell if the stones in it are diamonds without going to a jeweller?

If its not diamond, its still a pretty ring that I like It would be nice to know either way!

Thankyou!

 

[Laethia]

Ooops sorry hadn't realised you weren't allowed to post image hosting links, just found out how to insert and image on here so give me a sec to pop the pictures up Hope there aren't too many

 

[natascha]

You do need to go to a jeweler or an appraiser to test them to be sure.

If they are old pieces that have been worn a lot then you use a loupe to look at the facet junctions. Usually diamond simulants from old pieces will show abraded fact junctions while diamond usually don't. However this is not fool proof, I have seen a couple of diamonds that were abraded and I have seen synthetics that were clean due to not being worn a lot or due to a protective setting. Also using a loupe the girdle could also give an indication of what it is but also this is not definitive.

From the photos of the first ring the stones don't really look like diamonds, but that could be due to a bad cut coupled with the photos not being crystal clear.

 

[denverappraiser]

Telling if a stone is a diamond or not isn't usually very difficult and many jewelers are happy to do it for free. Ask. Pawn shops too. The tricky part has to do with grading, valuing and all of the questions customers ask AFTER they learn that it's a diamond.

 

[webdiva]

You can also buy a diamond tester on Ebay - which I did after going to a jeweler that used a similar one on a stone I had. Depending on the era, it could also be paste - but I'm not sure paste was ever set into gold. Now that I look online - some paste rings had 9k gold shanks and sterling heads.
http://www.morninggloryjewelry.com/paste-jewelry-aid-67.html

 

[kelpie]

One rule of thumb way is to fog it with your breath. A diamond will clear within a second but a lot of simulants will take much longer. The diamond must be very clean for this to be at all accurate because I find fog lingers on a greasy diamond. Home diamond testers are also under $20 on ebay.

 

[Laethia]

Thankyou for the replies!!

Some of that "paste" stuff is actually pretty beautiful

I tried the fog test and couldn't see anything, but I'm not so clever and probably just missed it

The more I stare at the ring the more it looks like the outter stones are diamonds and the middle stone is something else, but I'm not sure why they would do this. I guess maybe in the way some people nowadays have a simulant like moissanite as a larger stone set in a real diamond halo?

I'd like to take it to the local jeweller but I feel a little guilty as we didn't get my e-ring from them.. I'll look into the diamond tester though, thankyou!