> Gem War
>
http://tinyurl.com/yx8tmo
>
>
> Robert Amoroso learned the jewelry business from his dad and spent more than
> 700 hours in a classroom to become an expert on precious stones. On a recent
> afternoon, he eyed three gems. One was a diamond. Another was cubic
> zirconia, a common and relatively inexpensive diamond substitute. The third
> was something new: a gem-quality diamond produced in a laboratory.
>
> The cubic zirconia stood out easily to the naked eye -- but Mr. Amoroso
> couldn't immediately tell the other two stones apart. Only after inspecting
> them under a microscope did he note an inscribed serial number that betrayed
> the origins of the lab-produced diamond.
>
> "It's scary," said Mr. Amoroso, owner of Amoroso Jewelers, a retail and
> design shop in Boston's Jewelers Exchange Building. "I knew it could be
> done, but I just hadn't seen one yet." He pronounced the lab-grown diamond
> "the best of the three," noting that the natural diamond had more flaws. ...
