Do you trust preowned diamond jewelry to be correctly identified as lab vs. earth-mined these days?

[GemView]

So I don't often buy preowned jewelry but occasionally a piece catches my eye and I bite the bullet. I bought a ring recently from an eBay seller with 100 percent feedback, someone I have purchased from in the past. The ring consists of a vintage waterfall cluster with 3/4 carat of diamonds (shown in attached photo). The diamonds were said to be F-H/VS clarity by the seller's in-house gemologist (seller owns a retail jewelry shop). Upon receipt the diamonds were blindingly bright, with tons of fire — so much so that I wondered if they were moissanite or potentially lab diamond.

I decided to have the prongs/stones checked the other day and in the course of this was told that the diamonds are lab grown. I then took the ring to two other jewelers and was told the same thing — but none of them had a diamond tester that can tell the difference. (They based this on the lack of inclusions.) I contacted the seller and asked how they verify preowned pieces and was told "We have a CVD HTHP tester. It is top of the line. 99% accurate".

I have to admit these diamonds have a "too good to be true" appearance. The diamonds in this ring even out-perform the Costco diamond jewelry I own. (The attached photos don't even begin to capture the amount of fire this ring puts out under any kind of light.)

It occurred to me to drop in to PS and ask whether the introduction of lab diamond jewelry into the market has made anyone think twice about going on a preowned "treasure hunt"?

Given that many sellers of estate jewelry, pawn shops and the like, can't attach an appropriate resale value to these pieces if they lack in-house method to reliably differentiate lab from earth-mined, the best strategy may be to assume everything is lab grown and to pay accordingly. However, this may also be unrealistic given that many resellers no doubt default to the assumption that diamonds are mostly earth mined, given that lab diamonds are relatively new on the market.

In this case, I paid a price that would be fair for earth mined — but overpriced if the diamonds are lab-grown. I have only two more days to determine if I should request a return. I can only guess that based on the styling — the popularity of the waterfall style as best I can recall peaked in the 1990s — it is unlikely to be suggestive of lab diamonds. To that end, it occurred to me that the maker's mark inside the band might offer up some clues but I can't seem to track down the identity of EH (see attached photo).

Decisions! Decisions!

I'd love to hear your thoughts.


Edit: To clarify, I own a mix of lab and earth-mined diamond jewelry. It's just for purposes of valuation I am now struggling to understand how I shop preowned diamond jewelry In the future, since the resale value on jewelry is not all that great to begin with and presumably even less so for lab created.

 

[freddyboston]

Hit them with a uv light... if they're real some should glow. If they are all inert they are most likely synthetics

 

[Dreamer_D]

For a vintage piece like this there is very little difference in resale value value for you as a consumer whether they are lab or natural. There is also not a reliable way to tell to my knowledge. If you like it enjoy. Especially given that resale value for you in a piece like this would not be very far above scrap value.

As to your broader question, this is why I buy antique diamonds. Most are tinted, chipped, with inclusions, so there is no doubt!

 

[Karl_K]

1990s not vintage probably not lab diamonds unless its a recent knock off of a 1990s ring.

 

[autumngems]

Return

 

[GemView]

1990s not vintage probably not lab diamonds unless its a recent knock off of a 1990s ring.

Antique is 100 years. Generally, what would be considered vintage?

The waterfall rings I recall from the 1990s tended to be very included (common style in department stores). I don't know if it would be worth anybody's while to replace mined poor quality with lab high quality.

I do wish I could figure out what the EH stands for…

 

[GemView]

For a vintage piece like this there is very little difference in resale value value for you as a consumer whether they are lab or natural. There is also not a reliable way to tell to my knowledge. If you like it enjoy. Especially given that resale value for you in a piece like this would not be very far above scrap value.

As to your broader question, this is why I buy antique diamonds. Most are tinted, chipped, with inclusions, so there is no doubt!

Thanks. I'm not so concerned with my resale value as I rarely ever sell anything but I am concerned I may have overpaid if it's lab. With gold prices what they are, nothing in gold is exactly a bargain. It was listed at 3.6 grams. My scale (no-name digital scale for kitchen use, probably not accurate) said 3 grams. I did put the photo in Google images and couldn't come up with an exact duplicate, which I suspect would have popped up if it was a reproduction.

 

[GemView]

Hit them with a uv light... if they're real some should glow. If they are all inert they are most likely synthetics

Great suggestion. In a cluster style, there is bound to be something that fluoresces. Now I just have to figure out if I have a UV light somewhere…

 

[Karl_K]

Antique is 100 years. Generally, what would be considered vintage?

The waterfall rings I recall from the 1990s tended to be very included (common style in department stores). I don't know if it would be worth anybody's while to replace natural poor quality with lab high quality.

I do wish I could figure out what the EH stands for…

Looked it up seems these days 20 years old is vintage and true vintage is 50 years. What???
To me vintage is 50 years. geez im old.

 

[GemView]

Looked it up seems these days 20 years old is vintage and true vintage is 50 years. What???
To me vintage is 50 years. geez im old.

Well, I"m old too. I remember the 1990s — as an adult, lol

 

[DejaWiz]

Hit them with a uv light... if they're real some should glow. If they are all inert they are most likely synthetics

"Real"?
Psst - lab/human grown diamonds are just as real as natural/earth grown diamonds.

 

[freddyboston]

"Real"?
Psst - lab/human grown diamonds are just as real as natural/earth grown diamonds.

But in this case it might be a new synthetic diamond ring being passed off as a "real" vintage diamond ring w/ "real" $$$ naturals....

 

[GemView]

"Real"?
Psst - lab/human grown diamonds are just as real as natural/earth grown diamonds.

I find myself making that mistake from time to time too, had to edit a previous reply to replace "if they are natural" with "if they are mined".

I don't own a blacklight and my diamond tester device is too basic to have UV. I wonder why none of the jewelers used a UV light?

The seller said they have a tester but didn't indicate what kind. I'm guessing something along these lines? It fits the description the jewelers in my area gave me of a testing tool that is "too expensive" for them to have on hand. (Although I think it's kind of risky these days to own a jewelry shop and NOT have a tester on hand, assuming these things are accurate.):

https://septools.com/products/falcon-diamond-cvd-hpht-detector

 

[Bron357]

To me with preloved jewelry with smaller diamonds most the money is in the workmanship. To me, until the diamond size goes above .40 carat it matters little, cost wise, whether they are natural or lab. A diamond is a diamond.
Sure people want to receive what they pay for and sellers should be honest but I wouldn’t return it if I paid a good price and I love how it looks.
With smaller diamonds it costs like $50 to reset a gem, more if the prongs need work, so there’s not much $ incentive to replace natural with lab for a sneaky profit because there really isn’t any sneaky profit to be had so buying an older style ring is more likely to mean natural than lab.
I’m about to pay $200 to repair a ring with 2 pin point size missing diamonds, the diamonds themselves are like $10 if that so the money is in the repair work.

 

[freddyboston]

I find myself making that mistake from time to time too, had to edit a previous reply to replace "if they are natural" with "if they are mined".

I don't own a blacklight and my diamond tester device is too basic to have UV. I wonder why none of the jewelers used a UV light?

Actually, UV testing is built into the machines -

Using the DiamondView™ to help identify and differentiate natural diamonds from laboratory-grown diamonds (LGDs) - De Beers Group Verification

Many consumers believe it’s impossible to distinguish between a natural diamond, formed in the Earth, and a man-made or laboratory-grown diamond. However, this is not true and there are ways to verify that a diamond is natural.

verification.debeersgroup.com

 

[Dreamer_D]

Thanks. I'm not so concerned with my resale value as I rarely ever sell anything but I am concerned I may have overpaid if it's lab. With gold prices what they are, nothing in gold is exactly a bargain. It was listed at 3.6 grams. My scale (no-name digital scale for kitchen use, probably not accurate) said 3 grams. I did put the photo in Google images and couldn't come up with an exact duplicate, which I suspect would have popped up if it was a reproduction.

It is a very nice looking piece with bright white diamonds and nice quality workmanship. I’m not sure there is a way to say the difference in “value” if it was natural vs synthetic. What did you pay? I troll eBay a lot (too much) and see similar styles often, though I think this is a nice example as I said above.

Looked it up seems these days 20 years old is vintage and true vintage is 50 years. What???
To me vintage is 50 years. geez im old.

Yeah when we said not vintage I was like “are you sure about that kind sir?” lol I’ve seen 30 and even using that 1990s fits the bill!

 

[Dreamer_D]

I find myself making that mistake from time to time too, had to edit a previous reply to replace "if they are natural" with "if they are mined".

“Natural” is also accurate IMO to describe mined stones, as is the term “synthetic” to describe lab.

 

[Dreamer_D]

To me with preloved jewelry with smaller diamonds most the money is in the workmanship. To me, until the diamond size goes above .40 carat it matters little, cost wise, whether they are natural or lab. A diamond is a diamond.
Sure people want to receive what they pay for and sellers should be honest but I wouldn’t return it if I paid a good price and I love how it looks.
With smaller diamonds it costs like $50 to reset a gem, more if the prongs need work, so there’s not much $ incentive to replace natural with lab for a sneaky profit because there really isn’t any sneaky profit to be had so buying an older style ring is more likely to mean natural than lab.
I’m about to pay $200 to repair a ring with 2 pin point size missing diamonds, the diamonds themselves are like $10 if that so the money is in the repair work.

^^ yes, all of this!

 

[Karl_K]

Yeah when we said not vintage I was like “are you sure about that kind sir?” lol I’ve seen 30 and even using that 1990s fits the bill!

lol I could argue... but I will just wipe the egg off for not googling first to see what the current marketing twisted meaning was.
Its not something I deal with often.
Next time I will say 1990s not "true vintage" :}

 

[GemView]

But in this case it might be a synthetic diamond ring being passed off as a diamond ring w/ $$$ naturals....

They all agreed it wasn't moissanite but they do have a moissanite-like appearance.

It is a very nice looking piece with bright white diamonds and nice quality workmanship. I’m not sure there is a way to say the difference in “value” if it was natural vs synthetic. What did you pay? I troll eBay a lot (too much) and see similar styles often, though I think this is a nice example as I said above.


Yeah when we said not vintage I was like “are you sure about that kind sir?” lol I’ve seen 30 and even using that 1990s fits the bill!

I paid under $600. However, if they are lab diamonds I would guess that the $300s would have been more appropriate, if only because gold prices are so high. If they are natural diamonds, I got a great deal for the quality. Ironically, however, it's that quality that is making everyone who has examined the ring conclude they are lab. (Unfortunately, I don't recall if anybody used a tester with UV light. I only know they all agreed it's not moissanite.)

Given the cost that Bron357 mentioned, recycling a setting and replacing out all the stones probably wasn't done. So I'd like to think I just got super lucky. If I could figure out who the EH stamp belongs to, I might be able to narrow down the age of the setting but upon asking the seller they didn't have any additional info.

 

[Dreamer_D]

I think that is a very good price. I don’t know where you got the idea that it would be worth half if it was lab stones but I disagree with that assessment.

 

[Mreader]

Hit them with a uv light... if they're real some should glow. If they are all inert they are most likely synthetics

Yes!!! There are so many in your ring that it would really unlikely for none to have fluorescence if it were natural.

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

So I don't often buy preowned jewelry but occasionally a piece catches my eye and I bite the bullet. I bought a ring recently from an eBay seller with 100 percent feedback, someone I have purchased from in the past. The ring consists of a vintage waterfall cluster with 3/4 carat of diamonds (shown in attached photo). The diamonds were said to be F-H/VS clarity by the seller's in-house gemologist (seller owns a retail jewelry shop). Upon receipt the diamonds were blindingly bright, with tons of fire — so much so that I wondered if they were moissanite or potentially lab diamond.

I decided to have the prongs/stones checked the other day and in the course of this was told that the diamonds are lab grown. I then took the ring to two other jewelers and was told the same thing — but none of them had a diamond tester that can tell the difference. (They based this on the lack of inclusions.) I contacted the seller and asked how they verify preowned pieces and was told "We have a CVD HTHP tester. It is top of the line. 99% accurate".

I have to admit these diamonds have a "too good to be true" appearance. The diamonds in this ring even out-perform the Costco diamond jewelry I own. (The attached photos don't even begin to capture the amount of fire this ring puts out under any kind of light.)

It occurred to me to drop in to PS and ask whether the introduction of lab diamond jewelry into the market has made anyone think twice about going on a preowned "treasure hunt"?

Given that many sellers of estate jewelry, pawn shops and the like, can't attach an appropriate resale value to these pieces if they lack in-house method to reliably differentiate lab from earth-mined, the best strategy may be to assume everything is lab grown and to pay accordingly. However, this may also be unrealistic given that many resellers no doubt default to the assumption that diamonds are mostly earth mined, given that lab diamonds are relatively new on the market.

In this case, I paid a price that would be fair for earth mined — but overpriced if the diamonds are lab-grown. I have only two more days to determine if I should request a return. I can only guess that based on the styling — the popularity of the waterfall style as best I can recall peaked in the 1990s — it is unlikely to be suggestive of lab diamonds. To that end, it occurred to me that the maker's mark inside the band might offer up some clues but I can't seem to track down the identity of EH (see attached photo).

Decisions! Decisions!

I'd love to hear your thoughts.


Edit: To clarify, I own a mix of lab and earth-mined diamond jewelry. It's just for purposes of valuation I am now struggling to understand how I shop preowned diamond jewelry In the future, since the resale value on jewelry is not all that great to begin with and presumably even less so for lab created.

no way i would trust a private seller
and i have bad history
i brought an art deco era peridot and aqua ring in 18k that ended up being glass
once bitten twice shy

i dont have a problem with lab diamonds, but i would want to be buying lab diamond prices

 

[Karl_K]

Well, I"m old too. I remember the 1990s — as an adult, lol

lol me 2

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

lol me 2

i started work in 1990
completly off topic but i get a bit offended when they call the 80's vintage

 

[Roselina]

Great suggestion. In a cluster style, there is bound to be something that fluoresces. Now I just have to figure out if I have a UV light somewhere…

Will lab grown never fluorescent? I really wouldn’t know… why is this?

 

[DejaWiz]

i started work in 1990
completly off topic but i get a bit offended when they call the 80's vintage

As an 80s kid, I remember 50s cars being vintage and 50s music being oldies.
* sigh *
Now my era of cars and music are vintage/oldies in the eyes of my almost grown-up kids...

 

[GemView]

I think that is a very good price. I don’t know where you got the idea that it would be worth half if it was lab stones but I disagree with that assessment.

In that case, I feel better. In my head, I'm thinking more along the lines of lab-made sapphire, lab made emerald, etc. I could be wrong about those too but I don't think they have much resale value. (Not for me, since I rarely ever sell anything I buy, but the party selling it to someone like me.)

 

[GemView]

Yes!!! There are so many in your ring that it would really unlikely for none to have fluorescence if it were natural.

My diamond tester is too basic to have UV. Would an Amazon special with UV work for this purpose?

 

[GemView]

no way i would trust a private seller
and i have bad history
i brought an art deco era peridot and aqua ring in 18k that ended up being glass
once bitten twice shy

i dont have a problem with lab diamonds, but i would want to be buying lab diamond prices

I have been burned on eBay, too, though in this case the seller has 100 percent feedback and I have been able to verify their bricks-and-mortar jewelry store location. (They only offer 15-day return, though, so not much time to take to an outside jeweler for a checkup.)

I bought my first estate piece on eBay, an et toi moi in 18k, with .40ctw in old European cut diamonds, during the pandemic. It was sold by a Power Seller that specialized in jewelry (also a high feedback rating though not a perfect 100%). The photos seemed very good and the description explicitly said "no condition issues whatsoever". However, when I received it I found the one photo he didn't take, which would have revealed that the under gallery had worn clean through. I took it to a jeweler who also suggested I re-tip some prongs and add more gold to the bottom of the band.

Before making a decision on what to do, I took photos, wrote a message and told the seller how much I loved the ring but that it had issues with the condition that were not disclosed. He simply replied that I could send it back, nothing more. I wrote again to ask if that was my only option or could he credit me toward the repairs if I provided a photo of the repair estimate. I even went out of my way to emphasize that if he agreed with this, I would consider credit in the amount of his choice toward the repair bill. This time, he replied only that I was required to send it back because the owner wanted it returned. When I wrote back asking him what he meant — consignment? — he said he would not reply to any further messages despite having responded only 2x.

eBay customer service FAQ on buyer protection encourages buyer and seller to work things out, and specifically mentioned at the time that return need not be the only form of resolution. However, eBay then used the documentation I had provided not to help resolve the issue but to assert it was little more than feedback extortion. (I enjoyed 100% seller/buyer feedback for 20+ years but there was zero benefit of the doubt on their part.) As a result, I wasn't permitted to leave the seller feedback, which caused me to stop using eBay for a year because I lost faith in the integrity of the entire feedback system.

Eventually, however, temptation got the better of me.