A 5-carat diamond turned out to be glass.
An inspection of the gems at Prague’s National Museum revealed that many of them were, in fact, fake.
Among the “cheap imitations”: a 5-carat diamond that turned out to be glass, along with a large sapphire that is synthetic, Radio Praha reports. About half of the museum’s rubies have also turned out to be synthetic.
It’s not known how the fakes made their way into the 5,000-piece collection.
The news outlet explains: “Tracing the story is not proving easy, the diamond has been in the museum’s collection since the 1960s and the sapphire since the 1970s.”
An audit of the museum’s artifacts will continue through 2020 and include not only gems but also other items, such as paintings.
Read more at Radio Praha