On 20 February the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) hosted an installation seminar for its recently-launched DiamondCheck™ in Hong Kong. The presentation was given by Thomas Moses, executive vice president and chief laboratory and research officer and Wuyi Wang, director of research and development. GIA’s new president and CEO Susan Jacques also attended the event.
According to GIA's official statement, the device is intended to examine colourless stones in D-to-N range. It identifies natural untreated diamonds and refers stones that may be treated or synthetic for further analysis. In Wang’s presentation, one of the advantages ofthe device is that it can also identify non-diamond materials.
In the market there are similar devices for companies identifying synthetic, treated and natural diamonds, for example, DiamondSure from De Beers, Diamond Spotter from SSEF, D-Screen Diamond Tester from HRD, etc. Wang emphasized: “GIA’s DiamondCheck™ uses fundamental FTIR analysis for more accurate and consistent stone screening, therefore fewer ‘false refer’ results will be generated than other screening methods.”
DiamondCheck™ was first installed at the New York Diamond Dealers Club on 30January 2014, followed by the Israeli Diamond Exchange (IDE), the Diamond Dealers Club of South Africa, Bharat Diamond Bourse (BDB) of Mumbai, India, and the Dubai Diamond Exchange (DDE).
The device, together with GIA-developed software and one year warranty, is available at US$23,900 and will be delivered to Hong Kong in about two weeks’ time.
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