TRADE ALERT
The Gemlab Research Newsletter dated March 23 reports that more fake diamond crystals, “ingeniously designed rough diamond imitations,” have appeared in the trade.
Noting the beautiful craftsmanship of the crystals to appear like diamond, Thomas Hainschwang of GEMLAB, Laboratory for Gemstone Analysis and Reports in Balzers, Liechtenstein, who sent the report, observed that the crystals were noticeably void of trigons, the triangular etch marks commonly found on octahedral diamond crystals.
That led to some basic testing with Polaroid plates which determined that the crystals could not be diamond. Hainschwang says that phenakite as the likely substitute.
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” In the GEMLAB Newsletter 12/2007 from the 24/12/2007 we reported on phenakite being represented as diamonds or some diamond-like material; the unusual property of the analyzed material to indicate “diamond” on the rapid diamond-testers that we had on hand was indicated in this newsletter.
The facetted brilliant cut stone was easily identified as being non-diamond because it exhibited the material-specific very much lower dispersion, luster and brilliance than expected for diamond.
Now, two months later, we have analyzed a parcel that was supposed to be composed of top quality rough diamonds and it certainly looked like that at first glance, but was found to be the most convincing rough diamond forgery we have ever seen. “
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Diamond Imports
