Disclose Gem Treatments? Well, Duh ...

Forgive my sarcasm, but the pious outrage in the jewelry industry recently over the fact that some dealers and jewelers continue not to disclose gem treatments reminds me of the scene in Casablanca when Claude Rains, playing the corrupt official Renault, pockets his winnings in Rick’s cafe as he says “I’m shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on in here!”

Anyone who has been reading JCK for the past 20 years knows full well about gem treatments and the real reasons why some sellers still skirt around full disclosure. For years JCK gemstone editors have written detailed articles on a regular basis explaining new treatments, discussing the moral imperative for “doing the right thing” and warning about the legal consequences of non-disclosure. David Federman, now executive editor of Modern Jeweler, was the first to cover the topic when he was with JCK in the late 1970s. Helene Huffer was the second JCK editor to write about treatments and disclosures. Now as owner of Elaine Cooper, a retail store in Philadelphia, she scrupulously practices what she once preached on our pages.

Debbie Hiss Odell, G.G., now one of GIA’s best-known traveling educators, picked up the torch at JCK, and later so did Robert Weldon, G.G., our current gemstone editor. Robert once worked at GIA and is an ardent reporter of new gemstone treatments and the efforts so many people are making to support full disclosure. As good old Will Shakespeare said, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

Anyone who sells gemstones needs only to review the record to know what the right and smart thing is to do on such issues. That’s why the International Colored Gemstone Congress’s decision in July to adopt a disclosure code that its members must use on their invoices, while extremely welcome, is a bit of an embarrassment after at least eight years of wrangling on the issue (see Robert Weldon’s report from the ICA Congress in Brazil beginning on page 90). Nevertheless, the move is to be applauded and is truly a step forward. Retailers have one more assurance the stones they buy will be documented properly, though even guarantees from ICA should never replace proper gemological training to practice smart defense in the face of an ever increasing number of treatments.

Several other articles in this issue of JCK address disclosure, detection and treatment issues, including Robert Weldon’s thorough examination of a new emerald treatment by Arthur Groom & Co.-Gematrat, New York City, as well as Russell Shor’s reporting on what GIA and De Beers labs are doing to stay ahead of deceptions that are visited on the ever-bedeviled diamond.

Finally, our Upfront section includes a debate between American Gem Laboratory’s Cap Beesley and writer/gemologist Fred Ward. The two recently tangled in court after a consumer accused Ward of not disclosing an emerald treatment that Beesley believes was there before Ward sold the stone. Ward continues to contest the recent decision that the treatment was there at the time of the sale. He partially blames Beesley’s testimony for the outcome of the case. Regardless of who is right, the issue is extremely relevant to jewelers who could find themselves in Ward’s position at some point in the future.

Sometimes it must seem to jewelers as though “the world is too much with us,” in the words of my other favorite English poet, William Wordsworth. But instead of bemoaning the hard challenges of being an ethical retail jeweler in today’s crazy world, the answer, I think, really lies in being an educated jeweler. Arm yourself with as much information as you can lay hands on. Knowledge is power.