Diamonds and Fine Jewelry

Diamond miners in Lesotho, a southern African kingdom, have found a near-flawless white stone that weighs nearly 500 carats. This is one of the largest diamonds that have been discovered in quite some time.

The diamond was found in a Letseng Mine and it has been analyzed and was found to weigh 478 carats. Four of the world’s 20 largest rough diamonds have been found at the Letseng Mine and three of the largest have been found there this century.

A spokesman for Gem Diamonds compared the recent finding to a similar stone that had lesser-quality color and clarity and sold for $12 million.

Last week I went into a bit of detail about enhancing the clarity of a diamond it give it a certain sparkle that it may be missing. There is also another way to enhance a diamond and that would be to enhance its color.

Fancy diamonds (pink, blue, green, yellow, and loose colored diamonds) are very popular, yet expensive but there are certain ways to create them.

In order to create a fancy diamond color, a yellow or brown gemstone has to be used. These diamonds are irradiated and then go through an immense amount of heat. This is called the high temperature, high pressure technique (HPHT). This process also changes brown diamonds into colorless diamonds as well. These diamonds are nearly perfect and usually cost less than natural diamonds.

Sometimes people see a few flaws in their diamonds that they would like to fix or to put it bluntly, they just aren’t happy with how their diamond turned out. Many people enhance their diamonds to give it that special look that they were hoping for. Here are two ways to enhance the diamond’s clarity:

Laser Drilling
-Laser drilling involves using an infrared laser to create fine holes in a diamond to make it accessible to an inclusion. Before doing this, a coat of carbon or some other form of energy-absorbent substance is applied. The laser burns a tube into the inclusion. Once the crystal has been reached by the drill, the diamond is placed in sulfuric acid to dissolve the crystal.

Filled Diamonds
-This involves fixing the cracks that break the surface of the diamond. The cracks are filled in a vacuum that has a very high temperature (usually over 400 degrees Celsius) with a glass of refractive index close to a diamond. A color flash that is kind of similar to a detergent bubble can be seen because the two materials are quite different. This process can be faulty because after this the diamond cannot go through anymore repair procedures because filling a diamond cannot permanently fix the diamond.

When it came to mining for diamonds in Angola, the subject of blood diamonds was always at bay. Nowadays it seems like the mining companies are trying to mine as fast as they can since Angola holds one the last great sites for diamonds in Africa.

Angola is responsible for producing over $1 billion last year which is nearly a tenth of the global total. The diamond company that his its hand in this situation, Endiama, has a stake of over 50% of all the exploration ventures with other companies overseas.

Despite these occurrences, there are still risks. Investors and diplomats are taking note of partaking in these businesses in a country that has past filled with corruption. Many locals have been evicted from these areas.

The government is doing aerial surveys to discover any other locations for diamonds to solve this problem.