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[Samw]

Originally Posted by saltcreep

Not really...generally a jeweller can tell the difference very easily and will have the ability to perform the analysis. I doubt that most retailers can't tell the corals apart. Just like Acans. Apparantly there are a lot more out there than people realize. It's a gotta have thing...just like the cabbage patch doll or tickle me Elmo.

I don't know. Those expensive sun corals look pretty different than the sun corals I have. Also, experts might be able to tell between Cubic Zirconia and Diamonds but from what I read, it isn't easy. Sort of like trying to identify 2 similar corals to me. Both are hard to identify with an untrained eye and both can be identified with a microscope.

http://www.answers.com/topic/cubic-zirconia

"Cubic zirconia is so optically close to diamond that only a trained eye can easily differentiate the two. There are a few key features of CZ which clearly distinguish it from diamond, some observable only under the microscope or loupe"

If the sun corals are virtually impossible to distinguish, how are the collectors identifying them and how reliable is their identification going to be?