A diamond in the rough

One Sunday after church, Don and I stopped at the grocery store in town to pick up a couple of items. As he got out of the car, something on the ground caught his eye. He bent down to pick it up. "Here's a diamond for my honey," he said, and handed me ... a diamond.

I'm no expert on gemstones, but I'm guessing maybe 10 carats in size?

I chuckled at the thought of finding someone's lost glass or cubic zirconia gemstone ending up in the parking lot of a small-town grocery story. I tucked the diamond in my purse without much thought.

Much later, Don asked to see the diamond. He found a source online to determine the difference between glass or CZ vs. a real diamond. On the remote possibility this truly was a 10-carot diamond found in the parking lot of a small-town grocery store (hey, stranger things have happened), we would of course make a sincere effort to reunite it with its owner.

Of the many possible tests to determine a real vs. fake diamond, we used two. One is called the "Read-Through Effect": 

"To test the diamond’s refractivity, gently place the stone flat side down onto a page of newspaper in an area with lots of lettering. Ensure the lighting is bright and that no objects or people are casting a shadow on the diamond.

"If you’re able to read the letters of the newspaper – even if the letters are a bit blurry – the diamond is fake. If the diamond is real, its facets will refract the light in different directions, rather than in a straight line. Because of this refraction of light, you won’t be able to see clearly through the diamond and make out the letters on the paper."

So we put a newspaper down on a table, and put the diamond flat-side down over the newsprint. Yep, easy to see the lettering through it.

The other test we used is called the Dot Test:

"Place a white piece of paper on a flat surface and draw a small dot with a pen. Lay the stone onto the dot with the flat side down. Through the pointed end of the diamond, look down onto the paper. If you see a circular reflection inside the gemstone, the stone is fake. If you cannot see the dot or a reflection in the stone, then the diamond is real.

"Because a true diamond has powerful refractive qualities, light will bounce in different directions instead of a straight line. This is why you won’t be able to see letters or dots through a natural, real diamond."

So we drew a black dot on a white piece of paper...

...and put the diamond flat-side down over it.

Perfect circle. Yep, fake diamond.

I'm sincerely glad someone didn't lose a real diamond, and I also sincerely hope no one applies these tests to their own diamond jewelry and learns they were snookered.