Vancouver: One of the highlights of the upcoming 4th Mediterranean Gemmological and Jewellery Conference (MGCJ), to be held May 18-20, in Budva, Montenegro, will be the introduction of an affordable synthetic diamond identification kit and other portable instruments that will enable users to help identify loose and mounted melee-sized synthetic diamonds, as well as larger stones. MGCJ, which is a gemmological conference that stands out for its practical workshops and training sessions, will offer hands-on instruction of these new instruments.
MGCJ founder and Conference Chair Branko Deljanin said that during the past years, due to the influx of melee-sized synthetic diamonds into the market, various instruments producers and gemmological laboratories had launched screening and detection instruments to help dealers and jewellers identify undisclosed synthetic diamonds.
“The problem is that good spectrometers are very expensive, costing from $10,000 to as much as $125,000 and that only few laboratories can afford them. As a result, there are too few labs in the market that have sufficient funds and experience to confidently and positively identify synthetic diamonds,” Deljanin stated.
“Consequently, most of the instruments used are inaccurate ‘testers’ or ‘screening devices’ that just can indicate if a stone is a Type I or Type II diamond but cannot provide a definite answer to if the stone is of natural or of synthetic origin!” he continued.
The new portable synthetic diamond identification kit is the result of the collaboration between Deljanin, who is Chief Gemmologist of CGL-GRS Swiss Canadian Gemlab in Vancouver; George Spyromilios, Director of the Independent Gemological Laboratory Hellas (IGL), of Athens, Greece; John Chapman, of the Australian gemmological instruments manufacturer Gemetrix; and Dominic Mok, Director of the Hong Kong-based Asian Gemmological Institute and Laboratory (AGIL). Their combined experience, gathered during their many decades of research and work, and collated during three annual Mediterranean Gemmological Conferences and more than 30 workshops given in 16 countries, ultimately led to the development of the new identification kit.
