Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1881-10-22
BOGUS BRILLIANTS.
People Who Wear Imitation Dia.
mOnds "A COngressman's Blazing
ssSpark.r

People Who Wear Imitation Dia-
nonds-A COngressman's Blazing
s'Spark."
GLOW do your diamonds compare with the
genuine?"
"Put them side by side and you can't tell
them apart. Let me show you some samples, "
and the dealer turned to his iron safe and got
out box Of unset diamonds" of about three
carats each. Handing the scribe dainty pair
of tweeZers he requested him to examine the
stones before the light. The reporter picked up
one of the gems as carefully as though it were
$50 600 stone. and held it before his optics, It
sparkled brilliantly, was cut perfectly. and any
body but an expert would suppose it to be a
genuine diamond. The reporter was tempted
to slip the stone up his sleeve, until he asked
the price of it, when, getting the reply, Zone
dollar he dropped it as though it was poison
Gus. 'Here are some thirty beautiful speci-
MEMS" remarked the merchant as he unfolded
another paper and laid before the scribe half
dozen stones about the size of a dOOr-knOb.
'These are worn principally by gamblers on &C
count OF their extraordinary size.
They come great deal higher than those
apiece, or a pair Of them for serio-comic
singers earrings at 1925 They are exceedingly
brilliant, you see, and at night shine like 8
locomotive headlight. Here are lot of little
diamonds that sell from Is to rs cents each: ="
care those made of paste or fish-scales?" "Oh,
no; never deal in paste goods. These stones
come from the Sierra Nevada mountains, and
are cut and polished in New York, and some
are even sent to Paris to be cut and are then re-
turned to this country. They are the best imita-
their brilllancy forever. Not being as
hard as the diamond, care has to be
taken in not getting them scratched" "YOu re-
marked before that the trade was simply
immense. l suppose that the second or middle
these imitations?" "That's where you're
wrong. The principal buyers and wearers of
'snide diamonds are those who move in the
highest society, and I'll tell you the reason why
Let lady who counts her wealth by the hun
dreds OF thousands appear in public with pair
of six or eight carat diamond earrings, and
people never suspect that they are 'snide
They imagine that because the wearer is
wealthy she would never degrade herself by
wearing SO diamonds, but such is the case
Hundreds Of times have / matched genuine
diamonds for heightened ladies, and it was &C
tually impossible to tell them apart. You see,
when person ofwealth wears 'snide' diamonds,
you can hardly make people believe that they
are anything else than genuine; while on the
other hand, let person in more reduced cir
cumstances wear genuine diamonds, and every
body they meet will turn up their noses and re-
mark that they are 'snide.' So that is the
reason the people of wealth can throw on so
much style with very little expense"
"And Cincinnati people are great on 'snide
diamonds" "Well, should remark that they
are. They beat any other city in the Union.
You bet that they take the diamonds Let me
tell you something. Now. this is between YOU
and |, and l don't want it to go into print
There is a member of Congress from this district
whom presented with blazing six-carat dia-
mond. Its costs price was S2.47 That Con-
gresham fastened that pin securely to his i'm
maculate shirt front and went to Washington
where in less than week he created such SEN
satOn with his massive diamond that the Wash
1ngtOn correspondents even wrote about the
valuable solitaire worn by Gen.-I came very
Congress form the - district of Ohio. This
Congressman never wears his diamonds
while in Cincinnati, but it is never missing
from his shirt bosom while in WASH
ingtOn. Mrs. ex-senator -, of Kentucky,
appeared in Washington with a mag
nfcent pair of solitaire earrings, and set society
there wild about the beautiful jewels Every
body was talking about them. and great many
placed the value OF the earrings at no less than
$4,000: Many an old mans pocketbook was
pinched in satisfying his darling desire to COM
pete with Mrs ex-senator - in the way of dia-
mOnds. The funny part of it is that these dia-
monds worn by the distinguished lady came
from my show case, and only cost her $50. The
setting was fourteen-carat gold, and the dia-
the deception in diamonds is great. All the
prominent actresses of to-day wear cheap dia-
monds. the entire collection not being worth
over S35: but still they have a couple OF detec-
tives to travel with them for the purpose of pro-
tecting their jewel-cases. OF course this is done
simply to make the public believe that the jewel
casket is extremely valuable. You might not
believe it when tell you that nine-tenths of the
diamonds now are imitation and that often per-
sons pay big prices for imitation diamonds that
are guaranteed by the dealers to be genuine
Cincinnati IIn,es-Stdr.