On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:04:52 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry "William Black"
<william.black@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
>>Diamonds without a certificate of origin these days may be 'blood
diamonds'.
Yes, but it's a fairly small percentage of the overall market. And
certificates
of origin too, are pretty much based on trust. paper is easier to fake
than
diamonds. The thing to rely on is the integrity of your supplier. Not
papers.
In the U.S., at this point in time, blood diamonds are more the subject of
movies and news stories than a major problem. Yes, the problem still
exists,
but it's only a small percentage of the diamond market that's at all
suspect.
This doesn't help with detecting such stones, but the odds are still in
your
favor. And of course, while blood diamonds are a social issue, they are
not a
gemological issue. Blood diamonds are still diamonds, after all. The
trick is
making sure your money is not going to finance suffering and war.
Instead, it
should be going to make a filthy rich monopoly even richer... (grin)
>>
>>Pass them through an international border (by post or in your pocket)
you
>>stand a chance of getting them impounded.
Oh? Not likely. At least not at the consumer level or with cut stones.
Now,
if you smuggle anything illegally, you can get it confiscated and yourself
in
jail. Diamonds are not in some special class here. But we're just
talking
about buying stones on ebay in this thread, not on buying millions of
carats of
rough and crossing borders.
>>
>>These days the diamond investment market is plunging like a stone. It's
an
>>artificial market that has a very limited lifetime now that everyone has
>>realised that it's a cartel cheating them.
How is this some sudden thing? The market is as it's been for almost a
hundred
years. The internet has changed a lot of the rules of buying stones at
the
retail level, but the "investment" market in diamonds pretty much dried up
a
couple decades ago. it's been back, mostly, to a gem market for
traditional gem
needs. Yes, the market is a bit slow now, but not unsurprising for a
global
recession.
If you really want to be looking for threats to the diamond market, forget
about
some new level of consumer awareness. That'll never happen. Instead,
look to
the future availability of good synthetic diamonds. That MIGHT have an
effect
worth noting. But despite a number of years of loud news stories and
alarms,
it's not happened yet. Either the crash, or the avialability of the
synthetic
stones. So far, you can get a limited supply of synthetic diamonds in
bright
yellows and orange colors. So far, not colorless. That may be a few
years off
yet. And whether it will affect the market for natural stones remains to
be
seen. The wide availability of many synthetic colored stones hasn't much
hurt
the market for the finest of the natural gems. if anything, it's raised
awareness of those gems and demand for them.
>>
>>Buy rubies, you can't fake them or manufacture them.
what planet are you living on, William? Synthetic rubies have been around
since
the late 1800s, and have been getting better all along. Some of the
common
types are easy to identify, but there are others that require a
sophisticated
commercial gem lab to positively separate from the natural rubies. Your
statement about buying rubies is a good one nevertheless, since fine
natural
rubies remain rare and, as gems go, a good investement. But you certainly
CAN
fake them and manufacture them. Such fakes and synthetics are widely and
inexpensively available, and are much more common than good natural
stones. And
then there are the many issues with treated rubies. Heat treated,
diffused, or
glass filled natural rubies present ever more t***** problems for
gemologists
and buyers every year. In fact, coming back to the buying and selling of
gems
on ebay, I'd guess that someone buying "ruby" on ebay is far more likely
to be
sold a synthetic or simulated ruby fraudulently, than would be someone
buying
diamond, since in the case of diamond, the choice of a cheap synthetic
diamond
doesn't exist, so it would have to be a simulant (not as close a
substitution,
and easy to detect) if not actually a diamond.
Peter
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