Diamond Imitation

The fact that the diamond can be confused, in appearance, with many gemstones can lead to fraud, although not in the legitimate retail trade. A colorless diamond looks similar to rock crystal, precious beryl, cerussite, sapphire, scheelite, sphalerite, topaz, and zircon. Also many yellowish stones can look like diamond to the eye of the layman.
A part from these, there are various synthetic stones that are used to imitate diamonds. Especially strontium titanate ( fabulite ), YAG, GGG (galliant), linobate, and cubic ziconia (CZ, djevalite) must be mentioned. A well known diamond imitation made from glass is the so-called strass.
In 1970 the first gem-quality diamonds were synthesized, but these still do not compete with natural diamonds. At first, they served only scientific purposes since they are too small to be worn as jewelry. In 2003, however, synthetic diamonds up to 2.5 ct appeared on the market. In the trade one also finds natural diamonds, colored artificially by various irradiation treatment.
Diamond-doublets are made with: upper part-diamond; lower part-synthetic colorless sapphire, rock crystal, or glass. Other doublets have synthetic spinel as upper part, and strontium titanate underneath.