This content was first published on IGR – Italian Gemological Review no. 16 in 2023. The information provided here is therefore current as of the original publication date.
– So, ultimately, all gemstones are enhanced in a way, – an Engineer traveling on the same flight to Bangkok told me in a resigned voice, – we buy at the prices you guys want us to pay, and then when one wants to resell them, all of a sudden, they come in and tell us they are treated and worthless…
The sentence still echoes in my mind. How much skepticism pervades the marketplace and puzzles the consumers when it comes to redetermining the value of a purchased gemstone?
Can figures be useful? I can’t seem to find them. Yet jewelry and gem marketing keep endless lists of statistics, such as how old top diamond buyers are in Hong Kong, how many lab-grown diamonds will be produced in ten years, how many carats of rubies have been mined in Mozambique in the past year, what jewelry Generation Z will buy in Mumbai.
Indeed, we would rather need to learn more about the worries and the puzzlement of discontented people such as the Engineer who was traveling by my side. For many people, the purchase of a gemstone is a real investment because even a tiny citrine quartz, insignificant to insiders, is important to low-income earners who have the right not to be bamboozled with a simulant.
In Italy, this is exactly the point. People are denied the right to know exactly the characteristics of the stone they are buying, whether it is a priceless unheated Kashmir sapphire or a common synthetic Verneuil ruby.
There is no specific State law. Consequently, the Civil Code prosecutes a gemstone-related fraud by labored and inadequate means and only when the fraud is reported in a lawsuit. Consider what happened with the bank-supported diamond scam, when diamonds were passed off as a financial investment product while as a matter of fact they were misleadingly being sold just as any other ordinary tangible product but at an high off-market price.
This colossal multi-billion euro fraud was first denounced by a few honest gemologists, whose outraged voices went unheard until TV Report journalists finally exposed the scandal to the entire nation. At the upcoming June conference in Rome, Italian gemologists are going to suggest the way to achieving transparency in the trade by releasing a Fair disclosure Code. If left untreated, the disappointment of the Engineer sitting next to me, will diminish the value of the work of the entire supply chain. Let’s wake up and set a good example.
By Paolo Minieri, published on IGR – Italian Gemological Review #16, Summer 2023
