Some notes about that one-carat white lab-grown stone I
wrote about last week:
– The diamond was not disclosed as lab-grown when it was submitted to the
GIA.
– Boston’s Apollo
Diamond told me that it grew the stone in question, and that it was
submitted by a “party that is currently exploring a strategic transaction with
Apollo Diamond Gemstone Corporation. As part of its due diligence, that party
independently had the diamond cut and submitted to the GIA for grading and
certification.” However Apollo stressed that it’s committed to inscribing its
stones. “Prior to offering the 1.05 carat pear-shaped diamond for sale, the
Company will place a unique laser-inscription on the diamond,” it said.
– There were some concerned
comments on my post last week, but I think we can all be comforted by this
new information. First off, there is no unknown company out there growing large
stones and acting irresponsibly. Secondly, GIA was able to detect the stone as
non-natural. Obviously, as one of my commenters wrote, most people in the trade
can’t tell the difference, but there are detection devices available.
It’s just that, the odd incident like this aside, there doesn’t seem to be a
pressing need for them yet.
– Up until now, most white lab grown CVD stones have been under a
half-carat, and it’s safe to say that this is not the last stone of this type
we will see. Apollo says it “expect[s] to produce even larger and higher
quality diamond as our proprietary process continues to improve.”
– From what I’ve heard, one of the problems with the
CVD growing process is that larger stones tend to come out flat and lacking in
life. And indeed if you look at GIA’s
description of the stone’s dimensions (9.81 x 5.95 x 3.06 mm ), cutters I
spoke to say it seems like a flat stone.
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