The Renowned Swarovski Standpoint
Long related to luxury goods similar to fine crystal glass miniatures and chandeliers, Austrian manufacturer Swarovski has over a century of knowledge which gives them an unbeatable cut-throat advantage with regards to such goods as rhinestone diamond simulants.
Made from rock crystal, glass, as well as acrylic, the most faithful illustrations almost rival the price of real diamonds sometimes!
That’s because fine Swarovski rhinestones can generate rainbow effects much like the real thing.
Because of special coatings and production processes, many will even sparkle in the sunlight or exhibit some other features of a real diamond.
But for all the verisimilitude, probably the most tell-tale qualities entail its inherent softness, given a rhinestone by the lead in its arrangement, making edges and even facets rather easily scratched and rapidly rounded.
Such tell-tale signs require but fairly modest magnification to spot.
Modern manufacturing methods can also give things away, such as the molds used in lieu of traditional cutting, making for rather obvious seams.
It’s all done in Wattens, Austra, where the company even operates a small indoor theme park at a local shoppping mall.
Around historic Innsbruck in the scenic southern Tyrol region of alpine valleys, Swarovski quality is so renowned that every year since 2004 the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in New York City has been graced by a star from the company, quality that would have made its eponymous founder, Daniel, proud.
He was born more than a hundred years ago in 1862 to a glass-cutter who also held a small glass factory of his own, and was from a young age quite experienced at the craft himself, even being able to go on to patent his own electric cutting machine at the age of thirty, a device that tremendously facilitated the mass production of lead crystal glass jewelry.