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When it comes to diamonds and crime, most people think of spectacular, and perhaps daring robberies, such as the 2013 Brussels Airport diamond heist or Argyle Diamond Mine heist. However, in Australia at least, crimes involving money laundering and loose polished diamonds are apparently non-existent, whereas crimes involving money laundering and banks or gold dealers make headline news.
So unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past six months, you would know that Russia invaded Ukraine in late February 2022. This sparked a lot of western nations to impose various degrees of sanctions on Russian produced goods. Theoretically, this meant that rough diamonds (plus everything else including oil and gas) originating from Russia would be banned, Putin and Russia would go bankrupt and the invasion would be over in a few weeks.
Earlier this year, Jeweller Magazine published a complete anthology detailing the “fall from grace” of The Jewellers Association of Australia (JAA). As the article states, the decline of the JAA started almost a decade ago, seemingly caused by their own stupidity, which included promoting overseas diamond wholesalers over Australian wholesalers and attempting to launch their own rival trade fair in competition to one that had been running for 25 years.
Over the last year, I’ve noticed more and more customers bringing their own lab grown diamonds into us for us to set into a ring. Sensing a trend, we’ve recently jumped on the lab grown diamond bandwagon and started selling them ourselves. That said, there still is a lot of myths, confusion and debate amongst industry professionals and consumers alike.
Every so often, one of our clients come back with their ring in need of repair. It is usually a quick fix, such as tightening the setting or bending the ring back into shape. However, what I find interesting is the reaction by our some of our clients when their ring does break. Whilst most clients are happy for us to repair their ring, some clients let their emotions get the better of them and accuse us of manufacturing a faulty ring, even when the damage is clearly their fault.
10 years ago, I wrote about handmade engagement rings. Back then, in times some may say were simpler, jewellers could merely listen to what the client wanted, or prepare a hand drawn sketch before manufacturing a piece of jewellery. During the handmade manufacturing process, seemingly minor details of the design may have been overlooked – attributed to “jewellers discretion”. When finished, the client was presented with the piece of jewellery. Whilst most of the time the client loved the finished product, sometimes the whole piece needed to be remade due to a minor detail. However, as with a lot of things in life, technology is changing how business is done and how products are manufactured and bought. Gone are the days of hand drawn sketches and handmade jewellery. Nowadays, CAD/CAM is what fine jewellery consumers are demanding.
In 2013, I wrote about the differences between white gold and platinum. Back then, 18kt white gold was still cheaper than platinum, however, for the past four years, platinum prices have been steadily falling and have come down to record lows compared with gold.
Last week I received brochures from both The Platinum Guild and World Gold Council, espousing the benefits of their respective metals. However, during the purchasing process many consumers take advice from a jewellery sales person and end up bereft of any useful facts on the subject.
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The early to mid-2000s proved to be the heyday for Australian diamond grading laboratories. At its peak, there were five major labs – ADGL, Auscert, Bauer Gem Labs, DCLA and GSL. Diamonds certified by these five labs dominated the Australian diamond industry – from chain stores to high end retailers. Nowadays, the popularity of these certificates have dramatically declined, at least one of the aforementioned labs has closed and no new labs have opened, including the much hyped, or some say maligned, EGL Australia.
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For nearly six years now, we have been analysing every single certified diamond we sell above 0.30ct. This analysis is designed to be complementary to GIA or AGS lab certificates, and includes a photo of the diamond, an Ideal-Scope or AGS ASET image, OGI Firetrace output, a hearts image and a couple of videos. All of this analysis can be seen for any one of our Crossfire or Signature Series diamonds.
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