Brilliance, Fire, Scintillation......testing

[kevinraja]

Hello experts,
When I am at a diamond store, how should I test for fire, brilliance, and scintillation. In other words what do I have to look for, under what lighting conditions, etc. I have read a lots of tutorials on it, but they didn''t mention how to test.

 

[valeria101]

As far as I know, there's nothing to help with "fire" aside your taste. Of the others Garry's ideal scope can take care. Cheaply too!

There's barely any better than playing with diamonds

If you have the opportunity to see a few, personal impression quickly takes over any 'scope (not that it would contradict these technical predictions, but visual impression is seriously more discriminating, in my opinion). There are "receipes" for handling diamonds to the best advantage. Here's LINK one posted recently by "Diamondsbylauren" - aside this and the IdealScope there isn't much more to talk about, as far as I know. I guess the important part is to relax and give each stone some time to show it's personality. From a bunch that pass basic light return testing, one should grow on you

 

[RockDoc]

Check out http://www.gemex.com

Roickdoc

 

[codex57]

I used an ideal scope. Best investment I ever made when looking for diamonds. Also, try to get away from those jeweler lights. Those things seriously make even bad diamonds sparkle like crazy. At least look at the stones under regular flourescent lighting.

 

[RockDoc]

A diamond returns what it is fed to it ( lighting wise)...

As the previous posts says, jeweler''s lights make anything look good.

If you want to see in a way that is better, go into a completely dark room. Hold the diamond about 12 - 20 inches away from your eye.

Use a penlight with weak batteries, a candle or bic lighter to use the lowest light possible. Then, move your head, or the stone, or the light, and you''ll see how efficiently it return light.

Not accurate at all with the Gemex technology... but using low light will show lots more than of it''s scintillation ( how light moves through the diamond. I believe Gemex to be a better way of analyzing the light return.

Rockdoc