The Gem Lab That Refuses to Grade Synthetics

RAPAPORT... The French Gemmological Laboratory (LFG) is the oldest ofits kind in the world. Founded in 1929, it came into being after the arrival ofcultured pearls on the market prompted more than 300 pearl dealers from Paris's9th arrondissement to call for a way to differentiate them from natural pearls.The French government managed the lab from 1936 until 2010, when it was sold tothe French Union of Jewellery (UFBJOP), today its majority shareholder.Aur?(C)lien Delaunay has been its director since July 2018. What is your lab's specialty? The LFG's strength is that it is multidisciplinary. Ourspecialty is our privileged link with the University of Nantes, known worldwidefor its research wing in gemology and mineralogy. Prof. Emmanuel Fritsch isalso our external scientific adviser, with whom we set up research projects,particularly on diamonds. We are also the only laboratory that refuses to gradesynthetic diamonds. We offer our services to an extremely varied clientele,ranging from the key houses of the Place Vend??me to auction houses and museums.We are particularly proud to have been able to warn about the discovery andpresence of synthetic chemical vapor deposition (CVD) brown diamonds. We havealso published many articles with Emmanuel Fritsch on chameleon diamonds. Ourlatest discovery was a natural type IIa/IaB zoned diamond. We collaborate with[Gemological Institute of America (GIA) journal] Gems & Gemology, [TheGemmological Association of Britain's] Journal of Gemmology andthe French Journal of Gemmology. Why did your lab decide not to grade synthetic diamonds? It is a joint decision of the profession and the UFBJOP notto grade synthetic diamonds, unlike other international laboratories. Thesestones do not have to be evaluated on the same scale as natural ones, becausethey are an imitation of the diamond and must remain so. This decision is unanimous in the profession except forthose who want to promote this [lab-grown] material. But it must be rememberedthat the increase of synthetic diamonds on the market will bring down theirprice. Also, natural diamonds will always be desired for what they are, a rareand precious natural resource. The question of the grading of syntheticsmatches a logical view of things: If they are graded, this must also be donefor other synthetic stones. Also, not grading these stones helps todifferentiate and isolate them. How are you dealing with the increase of undisclosedlab-grown diamonds on the market? We regularly analyze synthetic diamonds, but we cannot saythat their proportion has increased in our volume of analyses. We saw a lotbetween 2012 and 2013, but with the awareness of the diamond industry and thedevelopment of analytical tools, things have stabilized. The improved sourcingof our customers has clearly contributed to this decrease. Also, we might have0% synthetic stones in a batch, or up to 20% when [the batch] is not correctlysourced. But our annual average is less than 1% synthetic in melee batches. Itcan nevertheless be said that problems still come from India, where thepresence of synthetic diamonds in lots is widely known. In which areas do you think the industry needs moretraining? The presence of synthetic diamonds on the market is a majorissue. But there is much work to do on the terminology of [describing] gems, aswell as on the disclosure of the different treatments. In France, we arefortunate to have a law, Decree No. 2002-65, which clarifies things. But thisis not the case everywhere. What are the main challenges facing the diamond industry? For us, the provenance of the gems remains a big questionfor our customers. But among the challenges of the industry are undetectabletreatments such as low-temperature heating, irradiation of tourmaline, andheating aquamarines or citrines. Our customers want total transparency. Laboratories will bemore and more important in this process. They should be able to analyze verysmall gems, loose or set in jewelry, but also all the other materials that aresubmitted to it. What are your plans for 2019? Today, we hope to make ourselves better known to individualswishing to obtain clear information about their gems. And we also want to growinternationally. We will exhibit at GemGen??ve [in May], where we will offeron-site analyses. We will also increase our conferences, with a frequency offour per year, inviting international speakers such as [lecturer, editor andfounder of the Portugal Gemas Academy] Rui Galopim de Carvalho or [curator ofParis's Mineralogy Museum] Eloise Gaillou. This article was first published in the May 2019 issue of Rapaport Magazine.Image: Aur?(C)lien Delaunay.