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The problem started back in 1812 when Friedrich Mos developed the Mohs scale for gemstone hardness. He took a selection of stones and used them to scratch each other. Harder stones would scratch softer ones and he organized them into a ranking from 1 – 10 with diamond being the hardest. Nothing will scratch a diamon...

What do you mean diamonds can chip?! CLICK HERE TO VIEW POST

GIA's letter to the Editor This journal article documents letters to the Editor exchanged between the GIA cut study team and the cut group who wrote an article in The Australian Gemmologist The original article from Volume 23, Number 1, January – March 2007 is not reprinted here, but a similar article was po...

Letter to the Editor of the Australian Gemmologist CLICK HERE TO VIEW POST

David S. Atlas 2/10/2007 I love fine gems, well cut diamonds and quality jewelry. Please don’t shoot the messenger, as I have bought, sold, owned and appraised countless millions of dollars worth of these beautiful things since 1967 when I entered the jewelry trade. I’ve been fortunate to have made a decent liv...

Gemstones, Diamonds and Jewelry as Investments. Are you kidding or are you really serious? CLICK HERE TO VIEW POST

Fine jewelry settings are created from precious metals. This article addresses some important information about gold, white gold, rhodium plating and nickel allergies, as well as covering fine distinctions between common platinum alloys. Many alloys exist and new ones are constantly being developed. Here is an overv...

An Overview Of Common Alloys Used In Jewelry CLICK HERE TO VIEW POST

This article shows an interesting effect of dispersion whereby color components are progressively diverted from the spectrum, as in 'fractional distillation' or 'fractional crystallization' of liquids. White Light & Rays White light is composed of combined colors; different colors can be combine...

Fractioning of Color by a Gem CLICK HERE TO VIEW POST

With grateful acknowledgment to John Pollard, Sergey Sivovolenko, AGSL and GIA Laboratories for valuable resources and input. Graphics produced with DiamCalc software by OctoNus. Note: This article pertains only to 'superideal' diamonds, meaning those with commonly agreed 'ideal' proportions and a high level of o...

Visible Effects of Painting & Digging on Superideal Diamonds CLICK HERE TO VIEW POST

Coming back from holidays, and trying to catch up with Pricescope, I saw a lot of discussion and agreement about diamond-cutting being an art, and hence diamond cutters to be artists. At first, I felt like I had to disagree with this notion. I consider ourselves not to be artists, but craftsmen, designers if y...

Can diamond-cutting be considered Art? CLICK HERE TO VIEW POST

Labs grading mistakes are a diamantaires favorite topic of conversation; are mistakes myths or reality? We aim to find out. If major labs give the same diamond 2 or more grade differences, this is more than a borderline difference of opinion. We want your help to find examples (like this one). We will send ston...

Diamond Grading Labs – A Plan for Peer Review CLICK HERE TO VIEW POST