A Canadian jeweler has won a huge audience on TikTok and Instagram with viral videos that test whether a diamond is real.
“We do diamond testing for every customer that comes in to get their jewelry cleaned or resized, and it became something everyone was interested in watching,” Andrew Kwong, co-owner of Christine Jewellers, in Richmond, British Columbia, told a local newspaper.
“There weren’t many views on the videos I posted, and it seemed kind of hopeless,” he said. “But after I posted the diamond testing videos, it just went crazy from there.”
At the time of publication, his TikTok feed has 3.3 million followers and more than 100 million likes. His Instagram feed has 100,000 followers.
There’s a quasi–game show element to the clips, as the contestants wait to see if their diamonds are real or not.
In one instance, a man brought in a $10,000 Cartier watch he purchased on Chrono24 and wanted to make sure the stones in it were real. (They were.)
One woman tested an engagement ring passed down from her grandmother and was so happy to find out it was real, she gave Kwong a hug.
But in another instance, an 8-year-old brought in her mom’s jewelry and found out it was fake, though she didn’t seem too upset about it. “My mommy has a lot of fake jewelry,” she declared. “I don’t know why.”
Another customer brought in a ring from his great-grandfather—and found out, sadly, it was fake.
One customer brought in a moissanite with a “GRA” grading report, which Kwong said, “looks like a complete knockoff of a GIA” report.
Kwong has since added videos on how to remove a ring from a man’s finger and a “diamond prank,” where he tests a jeweler by swapping a fake diamond for a real one.
Kwong told the Richmond News that at first he could make and edit the videos during his downtime, but now he finds all the attention a little “overwhelming,” and his brother has taken on a lot of his work.
And while the videos have meant extra business, he feels that their main purpose is to educate.
