On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:51:14 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry Ganesh
wrote:


On Aug 10, 1:48*pm, Peter W. Rowe
wrote:
It is certainly true that India plays a major part in the diamond and jewelry
industry today, and the world wide markets in both. *But please, don't let that
fact blind you to the fact that the rest of the world is also rather involved as
well... *

I never said the rest of the world is not involved. But, just that
diamonds here are different and there are lot of incidents (not just
stories) surrounding them. Also, I heard that diamond from other mines
are different from the Indian ones.

I already have discussed the fact that their long history makes the Indian
Diamond sources unique and different from more modern diamond mines. But
gemologically, diamonds from India are not particularly special or unique. EVERY
diamond mine has variances in the types of qualities they typically produce.
This is true of the Indian sources as well. In some cases, it's possible to
identify which mine a particular diamond came from, but usually, it's only a
guess. Diamond ends up being quite uniform in it's gemological qualities as a
mineral, and for most, it becomes quite difficult to determine even the exact
country of origin. When differences exist, they are very minute, requiring
complex scientific testing to determine with certainly. Indian diamonds are no
different in this respect. There may indeed by differences in the average color
or clarity of stones found in one location over another, but to say that Indian
stones are somehow unique and different gemologically from all other diamonds is
just plain wrong. Don't always trust what you read on the internet or hear
"somewhere". If you think I'm wrong here, well, cite some references. And I
don't mean some consumer guide. Find me some scientific or gemological grounds
for your statement. I don't think you'll find one.

An example of the typical sorts of differences between mines is well illustrated
by the fact that the Australian mines produce a much higher percentage of pink
and fancy color diamonds than other sources. But individual white diamonds from
there are no different from other similar quality diamonds from elsewhere.
Similarly, Alluvial diamonds (diamonds washed down by rivers to their current
location away from the original kimberlite deposit) generally tend to be of
higher clarity, simply because the stress and impacts of being washed away will
tend to fracture and remove the lower quality stones. So diamonds from Sierra
Leone, as one example, which tend to be alluvual deposts, tend to be higher
quality than the usual mine output. Even color can vary from mine to mine, on
average. Before the advent of the current GIA diamond grading system, it was
common to use terms referring to several of the famous South African mines to
describe color. But again, although these mines each produced more of a typical
color, all of them produced a range of colors. So you could say many stones
from a given mine were of a certain color range, and you might even refer to a
stone by a name referring to a mine that was known for that color range,
actually being sure that a stone came from one mine or another wasn't, and still
usually isn't, possible. The same is true of Indian diamonds. Diamond is
crystalized carbon. All diamonds are. The differences we use to distinguish
between one or another for quality are quite minor in terms of the mineral
itself.

Peter Rowe G.G.