Dear Vendor: Are your diamonds synthetic or lab grown?

[niceice]

We received this question via email today and thought that it was an excellent question and that it might be something on the minds of other consumers at this point in time...

Dear NiceIce,

"Are your diamonds synthetic or lab grown simulants?"

Of course our first reaction was "CHOKE - you MUST be kidding!" but then we realized that it IS a valid concern in our ever changing market...

As with most of the dealers here on PS, the diamonds that we sell are natural and untreated and lab graded by reputable laboratories like the GIA and AGS which indicate the presence of treatments under the "comments" section of the lab report. So if you''re wondering whether the GIA or AGS graded diamond that you are considering is treated, look at the "comments" section of the lab report to see if it says something like "laser drilled" or "fracture filled" or "oh what the heck is the name for that color treatment? Somebody help us out here, it escapes us at the moment" - HPHT? or something like that, but there is a common fluff name for it that is more elusive to the consumer mind... Ugh! Brain drain! Anyway...

As far as "simulants" go however, that would be like Moissanite or Cubic Zirconia and the labs don''t grade those but you get the idea, right?

 

[pqcollectibles]

Very good points, R/T!!

 

[Mara]

Wow that's intriguing R&T....I guess just answering 'neither' wouldn't have been very business-inducing or prudent eh?

 

[Nicrez]

Great post R/T!!

As I was surfing around E-Bay and saw a lovely 1+ carat radiant ring and it said "enhanced" but you wouldn't know it by a regular check...

Most people aren't even aware of these things when they search! As always Good to know your stones a real, naturally colored and clear, etc...

 

[Shay37]

R/T, perhaps this person was as astonished as I was to see how reasonably diamonds could be sold online as opposed to certain maul-type establishments. I could not only not believe the prices, I could not believe the incredible quality either. Before I began purchase investigation, I stopped in to a local maul establishment; and I looked at a ring (mainly to judge the size of the side stones I wanted) about 1 ct. with .06 baguette side stones. I was told by the sales girl that the cut was round (REEAALLYY? NOOO. Are You Sure?) and wasn't it pretty? They wanted $8000 for the ring!! It was so included that I would have had to be seven feet from the case for it to be eyeclean. (It wasn't eyeclean at three feet away)

I just think that a lot of people who see some of the pricescope vendors and others are in shock about the reasonable prices with the quality offered and are wondering, what's the catch? For newbies, there isn't one if the vendor is reputable.

These are just my thoughts on where the person might have been coming from.

Shay

 

[glitterata]

I wish one of you fine PS vendors WOULD sell lab-grown diamonds. You'd have a customer in me! I love the idea of a guaranteed-non-conflict diamond created through human ingenuity, without miners tearing up tons and tons of land to get at it. And if the raw material was cheap, there would be no incentive for cutters to cut deep, dull stones.

 

[niceice]

There will come a day when many of us will probably sell lab grown diamonds in addition to the natural diamonds which we sell, as many of us know sell lab grown colored gems upon request and we would source a Chatham lab grown diamond, etc. upon request providing that we were sure that the customer clearly understood that - that is what they were buying... But the production isn't quite there yet from what we've read, so that day is sometime off in the future at this point in time.

 

[cali]

there was an interesting article about this in Wired...

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html