Man-made, lab-grown, synthetic — whatever one chooses to call them, diamonds created in a laboratory are “real diamonds,” states professional appraiser and industry consultant Edward Lewand. “They still symbolize wealth; the only difference is, one comes out of the ground, and one comes out of a laboratory.”
Their growing acceptance among diamond retailers and the buying public will encourage more sophisticated development of popular antique styles, he says. However, he warns, there is also the chance they will be substituted for mined diamonds in antique and estate jewelry without the buyer being aware — something he says dealers need to look out for.
While he hasn’t yet encountered this phenomenon, he believes the growing availability of shapes and sizes in the lab-grown market increases the possibility of unethical switches.
“We’re going to start seeing these lab-grown old-style cuts hitting the marketplace over the next few years,” predicts Lewand. “The threat is there.”
While the creation of more sophisticated lab-grown stones is still in its infancy, he stresses that the issue must be addressed. “If we educate dealers now, then we don’t have to worry when the issue develops, because everyone will know what to do.”
Substitution of lab-grown stones will likely be in melee and center stones, especially in pieces from eras like the 1920s and 1930s, when diamonds were big, according to Lewand. “That’s when we might see a stone being replaced, say, in an engagement ring.”
He also cites the Art Deco period, “when larger stones were cut in shapes that transitioned between the old European and the modern cut. Once we go into the 1950s, we’re seeing modern-cut stones. Identifying the cut of the stone is going to be important in dating the piece and hopefully identifying whether it is natural or man-made.”
The simple solution
What steps should estate jewelers take to educate and protect themselves? Better product knowledge is imperative, says Lewand. “Dealers should be aware of as much information as they can get on construction, style, motifs and different colored stones used in the different periods. I think that’s number one.”
Number two, he says, is to create a provenance for the piece to show its age. “They have to get paper and information from the clients to show, for example, that the ring on offer was bought in 1995 and that therefore, the stone is natural,” he advises. “Old insurance documents, whether a piece was insured prior to 2010 or 2012, are important. If there’s a letter from a client saying the piece was owned by a relative or there are photographs of the jewelry being worn to establish, going forward, some provenance, [this] helps assure that this is really an antique piece with natural stones. That paper trail and paperwork are going to have to stay with the stone forever.”
The mom-and-pop shops trying to get into antique and estate jewelry, and dealers who are buying from the public, need to have knowledge of the details and construction of an authentic piece to help them in buying the real thing, says Lewand. “Once antique and estate jewelry dealers are comfortable with identifying the craftsmanship, styles and settings of different periods, they will start playing an important role in the identification of any substitutions of stones.”
As a case in point, Lewand recalls someone bringing him a bracelet they said was Art Deco.
“I had to explain that it was impossible to have 550 identical old-mine-cut stones in a Deco bracelet, which, moreover, was cast rather than handmade,” he recounts. “On the other hand, I spoke to a woman who had a large ruby starburst-like brooch, circa the 1940s and signed Tiffany & Co. The center stone was 3 carats. She was able to provide a history of her mother owning the piece. By knowing when and where this brooch came from, we could know this was a real stone.”
Maintaining mystique
Antique and estate jewelry is new jewelry to the person buying it, Lewand points out. “We have to create a mystique for this jewelry and the importance of it, and provide buyers with the assurance that they’re getting a natural diamond, a mined diamond.”
He predicts that “some of the better antique and estate jewelers are going to start getting testing equipment shortly and start checking whether stones are synthetic. I think they will start looking at a piece more carefully, checking whether the stones have been replaced and asking their clients for old paperwork. It is important for the industry to have a sharpened awareness of the possible problem.”
Image: Camilla Dietz Bergeron, Ltd.Article from the Rapaport Magazine - February 2019. To subscribe click here.