Harry Levy, president of the London Diamond Bourse and numerous other groups, writes in with the following comments on my post from last week (on July,24) on whether lab-grown diamonds are real diamonds:
“As you know over the years I have given support to the growers of synthetic diamonds. I have done this, not to act as a promoter of synthetic stones, but rather to give them a voice at meetings when we work out rules and nomenclature for their stones. They are never given a voice at to what is legislated—this is wrong. Further they have a product which is an alternative to natural stones, cheaper and in many cases better looking.
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The important thing is to have a nomenclature and marketing that clearly differentiates between natural diamonds and man made diamonds.
I saw a quote that natural diamonds are those that are made below the ground, whereas synthetic diamonds are those made above the ground. I fully agree that man-made diamonds are diamonds, but the consumer understands the meaning of words such as natural, real, and genuine as referring to the mined variety and not the man-made ones.…
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“The important thing is to have a nomenclature and marketing that clearly differentiates between natural diamonds and man made diamonds.”
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Part of the argument about man-made stones is that the term synthetic is too broad as far as the consumer is concerned. The trade has given a specific meaning to the term synthetic. These are stones that have all the physical and chemical properties as the natural element they are imitating. In the trade synthetic diamonds means that it is a stone that is in general indistinguishable from a natural diamond. Synthetic diamond does not refer to cubic zirconia, moissanite, YAG, white glass, or any other clear white stone. Unfortunately the consumer is unaware of this narrow definition of synthetic. […]
