This content was first published on IGR – Italian Gemological Review no. 10 in 2020. The information provided here is therefore current as of the original publication date.
This Magazine is a young one and has no presumption to cover the entire spectrum of such a broad range of fields concerning the gems, as vast as a galaxy. As we see it, it is already a good result to capture just some reflections of it, never presenting ourselves though as a representative body related to specific interests or groups. Therefore this Magazine, with no positions to defend, does not even have the onerous, not to say embarrassing, task of necessarily being obliged, depending on its convenience, to take granitic, Manichean and cumbersome positions on the issues it decides to deal with.
Should the editors of these pages have an ambition, this would rather be the opposite in sign. Here the flags of militancy are set aside, while useful elements are offered instead for the comparison of the most diverse ideas and points of view on research and innovation. For example, we want our public to have access and compare the procedures followed by the most important laboratories in their investigation and identification work on precious stones, including their policies on how to disclose the characteristics on their reports.
In this issue we begin to see what is happening with emeralds. How does the fissure filling process take place? How has the technique of clarity enhancement evolved? Which are the substances used? And, above all, how do the main and most authoritative laboratories detect and describe these substances in their reports?
This work is only deceptively simple. In gemology there is a certain resistance to sharing knowledge and experiences. Why hide it? No one needs to be surprised or – worse – play the part of the innocent and indignant. After all, lab work is a business and some confidentiality in business is necessary and understandable.
What surprised us instead is the immediate and, I would say, sometimes even enthusiastic response from many colleagues professionally involved in international renowned gemological laboratories. They have willingly delivered their official “point of view” to us. To them I express my personal – and our general – heartfelt gratitude.
Only thanks to these excellent professionals this special in-depth report on emeralds was possible. And to us this seems to be a very good achievement. Readers will thus be able to enjoy fresh seasonal first fruits, considering that this comparison of techniques and policies is quite new and so far only occasionally available, though specific contributions and useful monographs from the labs, scattered in the web, are widely available. It has not resulted in simply listing different, contradictory and therefore indigestible recipes. On the contrary, what comes out is a menu of sophisticated tastings and thoughtful procedures that are harmonious with each other because they are all united by the common commitment to a high standard of consumer oriented responsibility policies. So the fair disclosure of the characteristics of gemstones becomes more than a mere intention but a shared value, a true pillar on which the gemological community can be founded.
We are satisfied and convinced that our readers will benefit from this sequence of official statements by the most important scholars of the various gemological laboratories on the thorny issue of emerald filling. Different responsiveness, divergent approaches and grading techniques? Sure, how could it be otherwise? But the students, the traders, the small gemological laboratories, in short, the whole community will have the chance to plunge into the heart of laboratory practices and techniques.
Being the points of convergence on identification and grading procedures much more than the discrepancies, we all can take advantage from firmer certainties as well as wider scientific consistency. And if at the end our readers will reach a better understanding on emerald treatments, this will mean that we have succeeded in our modest intent to support the trade with correct information on shared principles and provide gemologists with an updating tool apt to assimilate lab innovations wherever they may come from.
By Alberto Scarani, published on IGR – Italian Gemological Review #10, Autumn 2020
