Ron Ringsrud reveals that when it comes it emeralds, you cannot count on them to make the right call when it comes to treatment.
Emerald Dealers Left Confused by Latest from the Ivory Tower Gem Laboratories !?
"Gem Laboratories always try to put forth an image of scientific objectivity and infallibility worthy of everyone’s unquestioning trust. The reality however, is one of slow improvement of imperfect certificates that they themselves declare on the legal disclaimers to be mere “opinions” with no liability whatsoever in case of errors or omissions. Emerald certificates from the gem labs have evolved over the years in response to market demands for determinations of the degree of clarity enhancement.
It has been amazing to see the laboratories defend their often-inaccurate certificates by alluding to the superiority of their high tech Raman and FTIR equipment. I actually stood by a lab director as he examined an emerald that I knew had a minor degree of cedarwood oil. The Raman and FTIR could not detect it even though I told him it had oil. The resulting cert said “no oil”, thereby making it clear that lab directors trust nobody but their gadgets.
Another lab director was out of town when an emerald was submitted and the stone was analyzed by the trained, but less experienced technicians while he was away. The emerald never touched oil but the cert came back stating “moderate” degree of clarity enhancement; a total blunder. When the lab director came back from overseas I showed it to him and he took it back to the lab area. Ten minutes later it had a “no-oil” certificate, proving that the determination of degree of clarity enhancement is a very subjective process that is very hard to train young gemologists to do it right; it simply takes lots of experience; experience that a lab director might have but not a technician.
Right now in the latest Christies Nov. Magnificent Jewelry Catalog is an 11 carat cushion emerald with certificates from two different laboratories with two different conclusions as to the degree of enhancement.
Gem Laboratories’ Ten-Year Scientific Experiment a Failure
The scientific method is the bulwark of our vast technological world; it discovers the truth of Nature by experiments and outcomes that can be repeatable and verifiable by other scientific laboratories all over the world. For example a scientist can look through a telescope and discover that certain stars exhibit a “red shift” in their spectrum indicating that they are receding away from our galaxy at a high speed. Other scientists can look through their own telescopes and verify this scientific truth.
The gemological laboratories of the world have, in the last ten years, come to rely on Raman spectrometry and FTIR for determining the degree of clarity enhancement in emeralds. However even after ten years there is frequently no agreement as to that degree of clarity enhancement even after looking at the same emerald! If process or phenomenon has no repeatable or verifyable evidence then we must conclude that it is not scientific.
NOTE: I am not stating this to criticize gem lab personnel; I admire their skills and dedication; I want to make the point that the determination of the degree of clarity enhancement is subjective and very difficult. It is way more subjective than, say, diamond clarity calls. Lab technicians are making mistakes and it is obvious that only decades of emerald experience can bring repeatable and reliable enhancement calls; it is almost impossible to teach to young techs. But don't worry, the solution is right here:
Proposed Solutions:
We need to take Shane McClure and clone him into a robot cyborg with copies at all major gem labs. Only then will we get consistency. He’s been looking at emeralds since the 1980’s.
Eliminate the categories of degree of enhancement in emeralds and replace it with the word “Fine” for all emeralds that are determined to be in the high end of moderate or better. Then give the comment “Normal” to all other emeralds from the lower end of moderate and below.
Simply put the word “Approximate” in front of all clarity enhancement determinations. This one word teaches the consumer the reality of all that has been discussed above. It is an honest, scientific and clarifying word that suddenly makes all gem certificates accurate.
Moving on to the Next Outrage…
But the above problems are nothing compared to the latest monstrosity of confusion: some labs have begun denying an emerald of its no-oil characterization even if it has no oil (modern or classic)! They do this when the stone has an empty fissure on the crown that is “likely to be clarity enhanced in the future”. In this case they put “insignificant” rather than the actual and correct call, which is “no clarity enhancement”.
The rationalization of the labs is: “the predisposition for treatment draws the customer’s attention to the possibility that the emerald might be clarity enhanced, in spite of a gem lab report stating the opposite.” OK I can see that mentioning on the certificate that there are empty fissures present in the stone, but if the emerald has no oil, the cert should say “no oil” and not “insignificant”!
Did you get that? The labs feel that some time after the emerald leaves the laboratory, they know that some evil outsider in a trench coat will come and put oil into this no-enhancement emerald, thus altering the emeralds’ outcome. Are they crazy? I can see some problems here:
1 The laboratories now feel that they can predict the future. They don’t understand that the emerald dealer has carefully gained the trust of his customer and discloses the characteristics of the stone; a special stone with no oil. Suddenly the lab barges in with its future prophesy of oil enhancement to ruin the sale.
2 Gem dealers work for years to gain trust and reputation. Now the gem labs are ready to walk all over that trust and deny a proper, simple and truthful certificate of an emerald to that dealer; a cert that clearly states that it describes the state of the stone the day it was in the laboratory. There will always be abuses of disclosures. But the gem labs should not punish the honest emerald dealers in an attempt to thwart the few dishonest ones. The labs should not overstep the boundaries of reality. If a stone has no oil, give it a no-oil certificate!
3 Labs continually forget that, as labs, they only see the best emeralds. They forget that moderate is normal. This helps us to understand their holier-than-thou attitude about emeralds.
4 The labs act like they are the only ones who see the fissure. Of course the dealer and his customer see it and understand. If tens of thousands of dollars are being spent you can be assured that the dealer knows; the customer too. Let him educate the customer.
This short article is to beg the laboratories to let dealers be part of the education process for customers. Don’t punish us all by assuming that all dealers will be unethical. And don’t pretend that you know the future. There is one gem lab that uses as its’ tag line, “Now you don’t have to say ‘Trust Me”. What? How totally wrong can they be? ! We emerald dealers WANT to be worthy of trust; it is what we spent out entire careers on! Help us; don’t get in the way!"
Ron Ringsrud
http://emeraldmine.bmetrack.com/c/v?e=A ... if8GG0Zxj9
