Indian Diamonds the good and the bad?

[SpiroOne]

Hi All

I am looking at getting an engagement ring made up, and when I talked to the jeweller they advised me if I am going to source the diamond myself, that I shouldn't get an indian sourced diamond, that I should go for Canadian or Russian? Now is there a good reason for this? As I am quite new to all this, I wanted to know if there was more behind this?

I didn't post this in the indian forum as it seemed quite dead so to speak.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[TristanC]

Are you fussy about diamond origin? About conflict free diamonds and the kimberly process? Is your jeweller specialising in selling Canadian diamonds?

I think a diamond with a good GIA cert that confirms it is natural and with no treatments it becomes a commodity, and it no longer matters on a material level where it is from.

The things that matter is ethics, politics, environmental impact etc etc that only you can place a weight on.

Even then there is a lot of confusion as to where these things go. For example Burmese rubies and other gem materials exported prior to 2003 in rough or that is repolished or recut counts as a product of the cutting/polishing country, not burmese. Law is semantics sometimes. And difficult to police. As a matter of fact I am constantly wondering where all the conflict diamonds go. I'm sure they are all still being sold. Just a question of where.

 

[John P]

Hi All

I am looking at getting an engagement ring made up, and when I talked to the jeweller they advised me if I am going to source the diamond myself, that I shouldn't get an indian sourced diamond, that I should go for Canadian or Russian? Now is there a good reason for this? As I am quite new to all this, I wanted to know if there was more behind this?

I didn't post this in the indian forum as it seemed quite dead so to speak.

Any help would be appreciated.

I presume this is about diamond imports to India, which has become a major but young polishing country. It is true that India's Clean Diamond processes are younger and less proven than those in Europe and the USA. However, greed is not limited to a single country. In a hypothetical scenario it's possible that a rogue trader could smuggle "conflict" rough bought for a song from West Africa into any known "conflict-free" mining area (even Canada) where a co-conspirator in that operation could mix-it-in.

There are options to match your level of concern. Any seller should be able to provide documentation to the effect that the diamond he/she is selling to you was sourced from legitimate sources in compliance with UN resolutions (with the understanding that no system is perfect). There are also tracked mine-to-retail processes, specifically in Canada, which are pretty reliable.

Provenance is very important to people, for good reason. Some wish to avoid the possibility of "conflict" at any cost. Others wish to do something to benefit areas of the world where the people are poor and the natural resources are rich. The best advice I can provide is to research and find a seller you trust to know what he/she is sourcing and guide you to the option that suits your values best, personally.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

There are excellent diamond cutters in India who work with chain of custody miners and can identify provenance from Africa, De Beers, Canada and Australia.
Your jeweller probably gets 60-70% of his diamonds from India but does not know it.

 

[denverappraiser]

Diamond 'sources' is a complicated question and there are different issues at play depending on what you mean by that. The mine, the cutter and the dealer can all be called the 'source' depending on the context and they are almost certainly different people. India is, primarilly, a cutting center so I'm going to assume the question has to do with the quality of craftsmanship in India vs craftsmen (or women) in Canada or Russia. That's an impossible question. There are superb workers in ALL of those places just like there are hacks in all of them. It's not the location of the shop that makes one craftsman or company better than another. Upwards of 90% of the diamonds in the world are cut in India and this runs the whole range from super-ideals to mudballs and everything in between. Labor costs are more in some other places and you see less of the very low end coming out of those places so in a macro sense the average stone cut in Canada or Russia is probably better than the average Indian stone but that's a hugely deceptive statistic. You're only buying one stone, so the 'average' doesn't make a bit of difference.