Laura's Insight

What Kind of Diamond Are You

I found something fun, on Glam.com, “ What Kind of Diamond Are You” quiz.

Which promises to pair the right diamond cut to your personality.

According to the quiz, I am a round brilliant type of girl, which really is not a shocker, seeing how round and oval cut diamonds are my personal favorites. 

TAR-zhay Couture?

Target the pioneer of bringing trend to the masses, has gone couture!  Target, aka Tar-zhay, know for its cheap and chic clothing, sleek and affordable house wares has teamed up with a popular LA boutique to launch an exclusive line of “Targèt (pronounced TAR-zhay) Couture.”

The Target Corporation has licensed its trademark bull’s-eye logo and name to the consulting firm Brand Central LLC.  The line, "Target Couture", launched last month, and is not in actual Targets, but is sold only in the hip Los Angeles shop Intuition.  The line host $330 cashmere sweaters, and if you are after a little Target bling, there is the one-carat diamond necklace which retails for $3,100, the Targèt Couture Pave Swarovski Crystals Clutch with a price tag of $870 and a $136 jeweled red target belt. Tar-zhay Bling

Brand Central believes that Target’s red and white logo has become the symbol of cool, and they are marketing or targeting toward a more trendsetting group.

At the summers end, the line is expected to expand into other boutiques and high-end department stores across the country. 

China's Plan to Cut Diamond Smuggling

China estimates that about 90 % of the diamonds in the country are smuggled in.  In an attempt to cut the widespread smuggling in the country, China will begin July 1, 2006 to exempt imports of uncut diamonds from value-added taxes. 

The finance ministry is reducing the added-value tax on finished diamonds sold through the Shanghai Diamond Exchange from 17 % to 4 %. 

13.6 million carats of diamonds were imported via the exchange last year, earning the Chinese customs 161 million Yuan (US $20 million).  With the cut in the added-value tax, officials believe the change will encourage more dealers to import diamond through legal channels, fighting the rampant smuggling.

The first change in the diamond taxes in the last five years is likely to benefit the diamond dealer rather than the consumers.  The tax reduction is lowering the dealers costs, but will have little effect on the retail value. 

Pan Bin, the chairperson of the Shanghai Diamond Exchange, said that in the last two years, the price of uncut diamonds has jumped by 30%, however the retail price has not kept pace, and as a result the diamond industries earning have remained low, with profits between 3 % and 5 %.

Canada's Confilict Diamonds

Many consumers are buying Canadian diamonds under the pretext that they are conflict free.

Ekati is the largest of the Canadian diamond mines. The mine produces 6 percent of the world’s diamond supply by value or 4 percent by weight and yields 3 to 5 million carats annually. The BHP Billiton the owners of the Ekati diamond mine market their diamonds as “conflict free” compared to the diamonds produced in war-torn African nations.

However, the Public Service Alliance of Canada has launched a “Dirty Diamonds” campaign against the BHP Billiton in the The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, in an attempt to increase public awareness of the ongoing strike at the Ekati diamond mine in Canada. "Dirty Diamonds Ad"

The PSAC is asking consumers not to buy Ekati diamonds. They feel that consumers who care about human rights and the fair treatment of workers anywhere in the world will not want to purchase the Ekati diamonds until the workers have reached a fair collective agreement.

Todd Parsons, President of the Union of Northern Workers, said, “We strongly support efforts to boycott blood diamonds in order to help those diamonds workers around the world get fair treatment. We expect that people who have refused to buy blood diamonds will also want to support our Ekati workers who are on strike exercising their democratic right to join a union and a get a contract.”

Jacob the Jeweler Arrested

In the June issue of JCK magazine, Jacob Arabov, aka Jacob the Jeweler, was accredited with developing the phenomenon known as bling-bling, which is the most high-profile diamond trend in decades.  With little to no industry prodding, the last 10 years have seen hip-hop artist adorn with diamonds but also the embrace of diamonds as part of their lifestyle.  The trend has not been confined only to the artists, but has been embraced by an entire subculture. 

Jacob who reportedly is not only jeweler to the stars but also their friend, has developed a friendship with some unsavory types.  Jacob was arrested on June 15, on money laundering charges, and has been released on a $100,000 bail.  Currently, Jacob is being accredited for accepting “dirty” money in exchange for jewelry and in return not reporting the transactions.

Jacob was arrested in his mid-town store in New York and charged with violating federal drug laws and conspiring to launder over $270 million dollars for the Atlanta-based Black Mafia Family or BMF.  The authorities claim that Jacob conspired to distribute over 476 kilos of cocaine for the BMF. 

Paul Wilmot, the representative for Jacob & Company, told the press that that arrest was “the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding that we believe will be straightened out in the next several weeks.”  Till then, Jacob has been ordered to appear in a Michigan court on July 10, 2006.

Tear-Shaped Gem found in Crater of Diamond State Park

Nine-year-old Courtney Conder, of Grantsburg, Illinois found a 1.11-carat white diamond on June 11, 2006 while visiting the Crater of Diamond State Park, near Murfreesboro, Arkansas with her family.  They spent two days searching for diamonds.  On the second day, about ten minutes into the dig, Courtney found her “Sparkles Diamond” as she so affectionately calls it.  Her diamond appears to be flawless in its rough form. 

Courtney found her diamond near a sign that marks the location where the “Uncle Sam” diamond was found in 1924.  “Uncle Sam”, the largest diamond ever unearthed in the United States, is a rose tinted, white diamond weighting 40.23 carats in the rough , and was unearthed when the mine was privately owned. 

Picture of the Uncle Sam Diamond found at the Crater of Diamond Park.

The Park Superintendent, Tom Stolarz, said that Courtney’s diamond is the 218th diamond to have been found by visitors to the park this year.  People visiting the park may keep whatever they find.

Congratulation's Courtney!

Hearts and Arrows

A diamond is all about light, how much is taken in, how it is refracted around on the inside and how much is reflected back towards the eye.  The more light there is, the more the diamond will create sparkle, fire, and brilliance. 

Most people are familiar with the four C’s, carat, color, clarity, and cut.  Cut is the most important in terms of beauty for a diamond.  More than anything else, cut determines the sparkle and shine that a diamond will possess. 

My last post dealt with the displeasing face- up patterns that are seen in a diamond when the symmetry and portions are off.  I wanted to follow up with a post on Heart and Arrows, which can be seen in diamonds of Very Good to Excellent cut grades.

When a diamond’s facets are perfectly pointed and the top and bottom facets are ideally aligned, a diamond is able to optimize the dance of light seen within. 

You may be familiar with a branded diamond on the market called Hearts on Fire.  Hearts on Fire are advertised as a diamond whose symmetry are cut to precise angles and portions, giving it the ability to maximize the light play.  An arrows pattern is seen from the face-up view, and a hearts patterns is seen from the bottom when viewed through a Portion Scope.

After grading hundreds of diamond’s, I have found that really well cut diamonds given the grade of very good to excellent on symmetry may show a hearts and arrows pattern as good as those seen in the branded Hearts on Fire cut.

Pictures taken at our office.

Face-up view of Arrows. 

Bottom view of Hearts.

Unattractive Patterns Found In Diamonds

When diamond shopping, it is important to weed out the garbage.  The beauty of a diamond depends almost entirely on the cut.  The face up patterns seen inside the diamond are important indicators to the diamonds proportions and symmetry.

In the right hands, rough crystals are transformed into finished diamonds with spectacular brilliance, fire, and scintillation.  A well cut diamond has a pleasing display of bright and dark reflections in its face up appearance, that are balanced in size, composition, and contrast.  Diamonds that have lower symmetry grades (Fair and Poor) will tend to have distinct dark areas that detract from their face up appearance.  The patterns seen in the face up appearance of a diamond reveal the choices the cutter made during the fashioning of the gem.

In round brilliant diamonds the table and crown (top portion), affect how light will enter and exit the stone.  The pavilion (lower half), governs the path the light will take once it is inside the stone.  A diamonds pavilion facets take the entering light from above and reflect it back toward the crown, which gives a diamond its dazzling display of brilliance.  Diamond cutters will sometimes try to retain weight from the rough, by deepening the diamonds pavilion, causing the diamonds pattern or face up appearance to be excessively dark.  Increasing the pavilion angle leads to light leakage, this ultimately diminishes the diamond optical light performance.  When cutters try to maximize the yield produced form the rough crystal, by giving the diamond a shallower crown and pavilion angles, thus giving the diamond a visually larger appearance, can cause the diamond to appear dull.

Unpleasing patterns seen in diamonds that lower a diamond cut grade…

Nailhead:  An extremely dark center inside the table facet, which is due to a deep pavilion that caused excessive light leakage.  View image of Nailhead

Fisheye: A pale gray reflection of the diamonds girdle seen just inside the table facet, caused by a shallow pavilion. View image of Fisheye

Dark Upper Girdle:  Upper girdle facets or portions of them, display a dark or black appearance.  This pattern tends to make the diamond visually look smaller, and as if the girdle were chipped.

Culet-in-Bezel Facet: Reflection of culet creates a busy and confusing pattern.

Crystal Inclusion

I came across an interesting inclusion today during my diamond inspections.  I wanted to share the pictures that we took here in the office.

Inside the diamond is a tab like crystal that is surrounded by a feather.

Note:  In order for an inclusion to be considered a feather, it must break the surface of the diamond.

There was some debate in the office about whether the halo appearance in the diamond was a feather.  It is, because it breaks the surface of the diamond on the table facet.

What I also found to be interesting is that the clarity characteristic appears to fold over when viewed from different angles.  However, this is only a reflection of the crystal and feather from what I believe to be the table facet.

Hope you find the pictures to be just as fascinating as I have.

Be Born to Tanzanite

During the Tucson Gem Fair in February, the Tanzanite Foundation introduced its new marketing campaign as “Be Born to Tanzanite”.

The Tanzanite Foundation’s plan is to campaign tanzanite as the birthstone, the gift given upon the birth of a child, which would grant tanzanite ownership of the birth category.  The Tanzanite Foundation views the birth-gift category as a major ongoing commercial opportunity.  Through the birthstone positioning and the tag line “ Be Born to Tanzanite” the hope is to forge a strong emotional draw in the purchase of tanzanite. 

Tanzanite History…

In 1967, a Maasai tribesman stumbled upon a transparent cluster of intense blue crystals, in Merelani, an area of northern Tanzania in eastern Africa.  What was originally thought to be a new sapphire deposit turned out instead to be a deposit of one of the world’s newest gems.  In 1968, Tiffany & Co., stepped in to promote the new stone and promptly gave it a name as exotic as its African origin, “tanzanite”.

Tiffany & Co. named the gem to evoke a bit of Africa’s legendary mystery and make the gem easier to sell.  This still holds true today as the Tanzanite Foundation uses a Maasai custom to lend a helping hand in the sale of “Tanzanite the Birthstone”.

Tanzanite the Birthstone

We are born to be something special. The promise of a person begins with the earliest moments of life and every tradition cherishes and celebrates a child being born, the miracle of birth, the gift of life.

From the heart of Africa comes a powerful tradition – Maasai women who have had the honor of giving birth to a child wear blue beads to bestow upon the child a healthy and positive life, and to set themselves apart as creators of new life.

This custom, protected and preserved by the proud Maasai over generations, is now embodied in the unique color of tanzanite.

The gift of tanzanite at birth uniquely symbolizes new beginnings and pays tribute to those who have shown the greatest of loves, becoming a parent.

Be part of this tradition.
Celebrate new life.
Be Born to Tanzanite.