Inside An Institute

Monday morning, word goes from broker to broker that Mr. Enterprise is looking for a 1.5 carater, G, VVS1, princess cut. By Thursday lunchtime, Mr. Enterprise is beginning to despair; he can’t get the stone that he wants without having to pay what he considers a ridiculous price. He knows pricing are firming, but this is ridiculous, after all a guy has to make a living somehow. Suddenly though, it appears that his prayers over coffee in the Exchange coffee shop have been answered. The son of Mr. Starship appears. “Afternoon,” he says pulling up a chair. “Word has it that you need a 1.5 carater, G, VVS1, princess cut.” “So?” Mr. Enterprise queries. He wasn’t so enthusiastic about the young Enterprise, he was known for being somewhat of a hard case when it came to price, and besides, what could he offer that his long-term suppliers couldn’t. “Come up to my office when you’ve finished the coffee, I’ve got a few stones you should look at,” the 30-year kid replied before disappearing into the crowded trading hall.

An hour later in the HQ of Starship’s operation, Mr. Enterprise was happily shaking hands and closing the Mazal on a parcel of polished. At last, he had found the stones he’d been searching for at a price that would allow him to finally close with the garage on the new stereo system he wanted to install in his 2 year-old C class Merc.

A few days later, Mr. Enterprise could once again be found hunched over a coffee in the Exchange, deep in contemplation. He was having second thoughts about his luck finding the stones at Starship’s. He’d just read an article on the Internet about diamonds that undergo some funny sounding treatment, which changes their color. It was a process that apparently took just 15 minutes and according to the article, whilst all of the treated stones are meant to be sold with full disclosure, according to the writer of the story several had found their way onto the market and were only discovered when sent to a gem lab for grading. If that wasn’t enough, the article continued talking about some new synthetic diamonds on the market. These weren’t moissanite or cubic zirconia stones, these were actually diamonds grown in a machine. Apparently you could simply pop a shard of a diamond into some apparatus and it would grow into a stone of some 2 carats. And, the article pointed out, in most cases, these synthetic diamonds were hard to identify by the naked eye. Again, most had to be sent to gem labs for 100 percent determination.

What did this mean, synthetic diamonds? And how about this treatment? Mr. Enterprise was starting to get nervous. Most of his suppliers he had worked with for many years, he knew their sources, he knew their other clients, but now, working with someone new, how did he know that all was above board? How did he know that he hadn’t been duped? What could he do? Easy answer, he turned to a gem lab. He submitted the stones for certification, knowing that if anything was less than ‘kosher’ he could rely on the lab to find it out. In Mr. Enterprise’s case he turned to the IGI (International Gemmological Institute) in New York. They were just a few blocks down the road, taking him less than 10 minutes to walk over there, drop in the stones, walk back and order another coffee. What Mr. Enterprise didn’t see though on his brief visit to the outer offices of the IGI, is what takes place behind the scenes.

In the middle of Manhattan this lab examines hundreds, if not thousands of diamonds daily. In fact during the season, like Santa’s little elves, they are inundated with work, busily grading anywhere up to 2,500 sparkling gems each day. (Not including the IGI Labs in Los Angeles, Toronto, Antwerp, several in the Far East, Israel etc.). So what happens then to a diamond once it disappears into the inner sanctum of the lab for grading? Head elf, is the sprightly and incredibly energetic Jerry Ehrenwald, President and Chairman of IGI. Ehrenwald is by no means a man who takes things easy. “Come on,” he beckons me disappearing down a long corridor. Running to catch up with him, we enter a huge room, in which row after row sits microscopes, Sarin machines, computers and other equipment all at work examining stone after stone.

First a diamond is examined, re-examined and then triple-examined for its color and clarity. “We only issue the stones’ color and clarity once we have three concurring opinions,” explains the IGI boss. The diamond is then weighed, in IGI’s case to 10,000th of a carat. Like in Santa’s operations, all the information is recorded on a database - the IGI database includes some 30 fields of input for each gem including, for example, the stone’s crown angle, pavilion depth and pavilion percentage. The full analysis of the stone is kept on record and assigned a unique consultation number. On the report itself, the usual details are recorded, such as table diameter, polish, symmetry, clarity, color, measurements, etc, but with a click on the database, the full analysis can be shown providing each diamond with its own DNA report.

But what about treatments, how can the lab tell if the stone has been HPHT’d? “Each and every diamond submitted to us is tested to see if it is a candidate for HPHT. If we see that it is a Type IIa [diamonds suitable for HPHT processing] then we call the customer and inform them. We then get the customer’s permission to carrying out further testing of the stone to detect if it has indeed undergone HPHT,” Ehrenwald replies. According to the Lab, if the customer declines to allow the stone to undergo further examination, then the diamond is sent back without a grading report. “It costs extra to put a diamond through additional tests to see if it’s been treated, we have to ask the customer prior to carry out further examination,” he states. “If the stone is discovered to have been treated, then it is laser-inscribed on the girdle as a stone that has been HPHT processed and it is noted as such on the diamond’s grading report.” Laboratories, like any other businesses that offer services must provide a variety of options. There’s not just the Diamond Grading Report, there’s also a Diamond Identification Report – Laserscribe. This includes a full analysis of grading, with a report number on the girdle of the stone and a scanned image of the inscription is included in the report. They will even laser inscribe a personal message on the girdle of the stone - yet another way to say ‘I Love U’. Or, how about a Colored Diamond Grading Report, Cut Grade Diamond Reports, Ideal and Excellent Cut Reports, Hearts and Arrows Report, Colored Stone Report or even jewelry engraving, diamond repair, appraisal. Santa’s just getting busier and busier.

But we’re getting away from poor Mr. Enterprise and his stones. He just wants to know that the diamonds really are what they are purported to be, that’s why he came here. Not for laser-inscription, not for table branding, just for proof that what he bought is the real, untreated deal. While the lab continues to examine his stones, we wanted to see what is the issue at the moment with synthetic diamonds. A few months ago, ABC’s “Good Morning America” picked up on the subject of synthetic diamonds. They invited some of the gemologists at IGI to see if they could identify a synthetic stone from a ‘natural’ diamond. Without turning to a lab, there’s no sure-fire way to tell if the diamond is ‘real’ or lab-made, in fact a regular jeweler’s chance of spotting the machine-produced diamond isn’t high (some would say "zero"). If you turn to the lab though and translate the ‘gem-talk’ you understand that they are pretty sure – ok 100% sure that synthetics are easily detectable. “Fluorescence patterns for natural diamonds are very different than for synthetic diamonds. Synthetic diamonds are identified by the distinctive cubo-octahedra pattern, whereas natural diamonds have octahedral or hummocky cuboid growth,” relates Ehrenwald. In other words, don’t worry, the labs can simply identify a natural diamond from the machine produced one - or as Ehrnewald himself translated for us, “it can be nailed immediately.”

As for diamond grading reports for these stones – there aren’t any. “We won’t grade synthetic diamonds, we issue a certificate of authenticity that records the stone’s weight. Just then the phone rings, Mr. Enterprises’ stones and reports are ready. It wasn’t as he expected... Everything was fine, no HPHT, no synthetics. Apparently the young Mr. Starship wasn’t trying to load off ‘non-kosher’ goods, he was just working hard, selling on minimum margins, running from office to office, coffee shop to coffee shop not thinking of the premiums he could get in the ‘sell’, not concerned on how soon it would be before he could upgrade his Toyota to a Merc, just simply and honestly trying to build up a client base in a market where trust means everything (and of course a lab report) and the future is in the hands of those with long-term vision.

On the IGI report: If a stone is HPHT then under color grade it is recorded as (color) HPHT processed: The diamond described above has been processed by high pressure/ high temperature (HP/HT) to alter its color.