true or false?

[interestedparty]

a jeweler in chicago told me today that he can spot diamonds from India compared to diamonds from South Africa by appearance. He said that the "colors and hues" were different than those from South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana. I confirmed he was NOT referring to the the typical D-J color scale. He insisted it was a "different type of color"

true or false?

did he make this up?

 

[Circe]

He might - MIGHT - be referring to the fact that diamonds have a dominant body color. Diamonds from some mines are primarily yellowish, others brownish, others greenish (these last are associated with South Africa and at one remove, conflict diamonds). The thing is, it's not universally true: you'll find a range in every locale. And no, outside of some very rare outliers (Golconda, argyle, etc.) you cannot tell just by looking at them.

 

[dveeg]

Where in Chicago? I find many in Jewelers Row have misinformation...

 

[denverappraiser]

False.

When people say diamonds come from India, that mostly means they're CUT in India. Although there are a couple of low production mines in the country, and there have been some important historical sources that played out centuries ago, they're not in the top 20 world diamond mining countries. On the other hand, they are by far the biggest cutting center. In that sense a lot of diamonds come from India. Most actually. Cutting doesn't affect color.

Diamonds from South Africa, Botswana and Namibia are all part of the same overall geologic formation. Although there are theoretically minor differences between mines that could be detected with the right instruments, unaided eyes aren't even close to sufficient. We're talking trace elements in the parts per billion sort of range. Political boundaries have no affect on color either.

 

[Dancing Fire]

a jeweler in chicago told me today that he can spot diamonds from India compared to diamonds from South Africa by appearance. He said that the "colors and hues" were different than those from South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana. I confirmed he was NOT referring to the the typical D-J color scale. He insisted it was a "different type of color"