Can you tell the difference between a real diamond and a fake one? The chemical makeup of a diamond requires high temperatures, pressure, and a lot of time! They are hard to mine—and good quality diamonds are quite rare. Lab-created fake gemstones can appear beautiful on the outside, but they aren’t the same as real diamonds. Let’s take a look at some tips from an expert for spotting the difference between real and synthetic diamonds.
Watch the following video with your class and then discuss the questions that follow [1:43]:
Pawn Stars: How to Spot a Fake Diamond | History
Some jewelry, often called “costume jewelry” is created to look like real gemstones and precious metals for a very affordable price. While costume jewelry admits to not being the real thing, there are also many cases of counterfeit jewelry in which people sell fake or knockoff items as though they were the real thing.
- Counterfeiting has been going on for centuries. What kinds of things do people try to counterfeit? (Money, jewelry, tickets, certificates, designer clothes/shoes, labels and tags, etc. are all often counterfeited.)
- Would you be able to tell the difference between a real diamond and fake one? (Answers will vary.)
- Counterfeiting wouldn’t exist if everything was valued equally. Why don’t people try to counterfeit cheap things? (The more expensive an item is, the more likely people will try to duplicate it on the cheap. For example, people don’t bother to counterfeit one-dollar bills.)
- Why do super rare items become more valuable in our eyes? (The less common an item, the more it is perceived as valuable. Certain types of gemstones, historical documents, a specific type of currency, a vintage automobile, etc. have increased worth.)
It might be a crime to swap out a real diamond with a fake one, but trading one god for another is serious business. How can we know that the God we worship is the real deal? It’s an important question! Let’s dive in a little deeper.
