Prague National Museum has found some of its gems are fake - Daily Mail

Prague National Museum has found some of its gems are fake

A diamond has been found to be cut glass, and half of its rubies synthetic

Fakery was discovered during an inspection of the museum's precious stones

By Sara Malm For Mailonline

PUBLISHED: 00:16 AEDT, 9 March 2018 | UPDATED: 00:47 AEDT, 9 March 2018

The precious gems collection kept at the Prague National Museum has been found to contain several fakes.

A diamond has been revealed to be a cut piece of glass, while half of its collection of rubies are synthetic stones.

The 'diamond', acquired in the 1960s, was thought to be a 5-carat gem, when in fact it was a worthless fake.

Liars: A diamond in the Prague National Museum's collection, not pictured, was found to be a cut piece of glass, while a sapphire and half of the rubies are synthetic stones +2

Liars: A diamond in the Prague National Museum's collection, not pictured, was found to be a cut piece of glass, while a sapphire and half of the rubies are synthetic stones

The discovery was made during an inspection of the museum's 5,000 precious stones and minerals held in the Czech Republic's capital.

'What we have here is still a sapphire, but it is not a natural stone as was documented when the museum gained it for its collection in the 1970s,' Ivo Macek, head of the museum's precious stones department, told Radio.cz

'It was artificially created so it does not have the value we thought it did. It was acquired for 200 thousand crowns and today it would have been worth tens of millions.

'And what we thought to be a 5-carat diamond was in fact plain glass given a diamond cutting.'

Scratching the surface: The discovery was made during an inspection of the Prague National Museum's 5,000 precious stones and minerals

Scratching the surface: The discovery was made during an inspection of the Prague National Museum's 5,000 precious stones and minerals

The Museum says they do not know how the fakes ended up in their collection, and is carrying out an investigation.

It is not known if the stones were already fake when they were aquired by the Museum in the 60s and 70s.

It is also not known if they were added on purpose, or if staff at the time did not have the expertise to catch the fakery.