Chinese Online Giant to Offer Verified GIA Reports

JD

Technology provider Everledger has teamed up with the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) to verify diamond grading reports on e-commerce site JD.com, China’s largest retailer.

Everledger will synchronize the GIA’s grading information to JD’s existing anti-counterfeiting platform, giving consumers independently verified grading reports, the three organizations said in a joint statement Tuesday. The program will also offer origin information, while identifying and reducing fraud, such as the use of the same GIA report for multiple stones.

Using blockchain technology, the service will give “unprecedented” transparency and enhance the digital-shopping experience amid a rise in online diamond buying, the groups said. “Digitally savvy” millennials account for a larger proportion of diamond sales in China than elsewhere in the world, they added.

“Given the growth in e-commerce, fraud is a very real risk in the diamond market, which is why it’s so important that consumers have access to secure and trustworthy information,” explained Chris Taylor, Everledger’s chief operating officer. “By bringing cutting-edge blockchain technology, online luxury shopping, and GIA’s gold-standard grading expertise together on JD.com, we’re empowering consumers to purchase luxury items with increased confidence.”

The information will be available through JD’s mobile and desktop websites, as well as on its app. The e-commerce giant will also offer livestreams and educational initiatives to teach customers about fraud associated with purchasing diamonds.

London-based Everledger entered greater China in 2018, when it collaborated with the GIA and Hong Kong-based jewelry retailer Chow Tai Fook to offer consumers secure grading reports using blockchain technology. The technology company also partnered with Alrosa to offer provenance information on diamonds through Chinese multipurpose app WeChat. Tencent, which owns WeChat, led Everledger’s Series A funding round last year.

JD, headquartered in Beijing, recorded revenues of $82.9 billion in 2019, putting it ahead of rival Alibaba, which brought in $72 billion in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2020.

Source: Diamonds.net

313 Carat Diamond Emerges as World’s Largest D Colour

The Constellation 313 Carat Emerald Cut polished Diamond

Nemesis International on Thursday unveiled a 313 carat diamond that has been certified as the largest D colour polished stone in history.

The emerald shape, VVS1 clarity diamond, known as Constellation 1, is one of eight stones that make up a collection manufactured from the 813 carat Constellation rough, which Nemesis bought in partnership with Swiss jeweler de Grisogono for $63.1 million in 2016. At $77,613 per carat, the stone still ranks as the most expensive rough diamond ever sold.

Tom Moses, executive vice president and chief laboratory and research officer at the Gemological Institute of America, confirmed with Rapaport News that the stone was the largest graded D colour diamond on record.

However, Nemesis has no immediate plans to sell the diamonds, CEO Konema Mwenenge told Rapaport News on the sidelines of the Dubai Diamond Conference. “We want to showcase this as the work of art that it is,” he stressed. “Diamonds are not just a commodity and this stone is impossible to value. We’re focused on building its legacy.”

The company is considering a roadshow to display the collection around the world at museums and other platforms. “We want to keep them as a family from the same rough,” Mwenenge added. The eight stones vary in size and shape, and range in clarity from flawless to internally flawless and VVS. The second largest stone in the family is a 102 carat diamond.

The diamonds will also be presented in their full polished form for now, but will eventually be mounted into jewelry. That contrasts with the company’s last major project, the Art of de Grisogono, an emerald cut, 163 carat, D flawless diamond, cut and polished in New York from a 404 carat rough diamond. That piece was sold as a necklace that could also transform into a bracelet, fetching $33.7 million at a Christie’s auction.

Source: Diamonds.net

GIA Spots Broken Diamond Glued Back Together

Green diamond glued

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has identified a stone comprising two halves of a diamond that had been stuck together with an “unknown adhesive.”

Graders noticed a large fracture and cavity on the table of the marquise-cut, 1.38-carat polished diamond submitted to the GIA’s laboratory in Carlsbad, California, for colored-diamond testing. When the gemologists examined the crack under a microscope, they noticed a gap running down the stone from the crown to the pavilion, as well as a slight misalignment in the facets and air bubbles inside the fracture.

The polish lines on the stone’s facets would have linked if there hadn’t been a fracture, GIA gemologist Troy Ardon explained this month in a lab note in the latest edition of Gems & Gemology. For that reason, gemologists determined that the stone had been broken in half after it was at least partially polished, and then repaired with an unidentified adhesive.

“Diamonds have been adhered together with glue to form a diamond-doublet, but a broken diamond that has been repaired was not something previously reported by GIA,” Ardon added.

The GIA couldn’t grade the diamond because the 4Cs wouldn’t apply to it, the note continued. A carat weight would have been meaningless, as it would have comprised the weight of both halves plus the adhesive.

Image: Robison McMurtry/GIA

Source: diamonds.net

Lab Finds 3ct. Synthetic Diamond with Fake Report

Synthetic diamond with fake report

A grading laboratory in China has discovered a synthetic diamond masquerading as a natural stone, complete with a forged inscription and a falsified report.

The National Gemstone Testing Center (NGTC) in the city of Shenzhen received a round-brilliant, 3.1-carat diamond ring, which it subsequently graded as F or G color and VS clarity, it said last week.

However, when gemologists checked the laser-inscription code that was already on the girdle, using an online certificate-verification service, they found the grading report bearing that number was for a natural diamond with similar, but not identical, characteristics. The certificate they saw online was for an H-color, VS1-clarity diamond.

The Chinese lab carried out tests that confirmed the stone in the ring was synthetic, created using chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The inscription and accompanying paper report, purporting to be from an international grading laboratory, were fakes, the NGTC said.

The stone had a type of impurity, known as a “silicon-vacancy center,” that is extremely rare in natural diamonds but common in CVD diamonds, helping the scientists identify its origins. It also had other characteristics that indicated it was synthetic, such as showing green fluorescence under ultra-violet light.

While this was not the first case of its type — the Gemological Institute of America last year found a synthetic diamond with a forged inscription — it is rarer for a Chinese lab to make such a discovery, NGTC noted. It is also one of the larger synthetic diamonds to have cropped up with false credentials to date, the lab added.

“The growth technology of CVD synthetic diamonds has been making great progress for decades in [terms] of size, color and clarity,” the lab said. “Recently, the distinct characteristics of the synthetic diamond are becoming less, and it is more difficult to differentiate.”

Source: diamonds.net