AGTA Bans Lab-Grown Diamonds, Gemstones at GemFair

The American Gem Trade Association announced that, starting at Tucson next year, exhibitors will not be allowed to sell lab-grown diamonds or colored gemstones at the AGTA GemFair.

National Jeweler received a news release on AGTA’s decision via email Wednesday morning. The release also was posted on the AGTA website, though it had been removed by Wednesday evening.

AGTA CEO John W. Ford Sr. said the news release was “pulled by error,” and would be reposted today.

According to the release, AGTA’s new rule bans the display of loose gemstones or jewelry “comprising non-natural gemstones, ones that are man-made, synthetic, or lab grown.”

AGTA said its dealers can still sell lab-grown gems if they are disclosed, but only natural gems can be made available for purchase at GemFair.

The association said it enacted the ban to “thwart potential confusion,” confusion it sees happening in the lab-grown diamond industry and fears will affect the colored gemstone industry, even though lab-grown colored stones have been around for more than a century.

When asked what led to the belief that confusion was occurring, or could occur, in the colored gemstone market, Ford said in an email to National Jeweler, “Look no further than the chaos created by synthetics in the diamond industry … Our action is also in response to considerable concerns voiced by AGTA membership in relation to the adverse effects that synthetics could also potentially cause in the colored gemstone industry.”

While the AGTA’s decision has made headlines, it does not seem poised to have a big impact on AGTA GemFair exhibitors, few of whom sell lab-grown gemstones anyway.

In his email, Ford said out of the 260 exhibitors of loose or set gemstones at the 2024 AGTA GemFair Tucson, only two list that they sell synthetic gemstones in the AGTA Source Directory.

“Since sending out over (260) 2025 AGTA GemFair Tucson renewals, we’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response from the vast majority of our exhibitors, greatly outweighing any negative responses,” he said.

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In its news release, AGTA also noted that lab-grown gemstones lack the value inherent to natural gemstones, which are rare and sometimes inimitable.

“AGTA felt that it needed to be crystal clear to buyers that when they attend an AGTA show, they know that they are only shopping mined natural gems from the earth,” said Kimberly Collins, AGTA board president and owner of Kimberly Collins Colored Gems.

“AGTA dealers pride themselves in sourcing superior gems that are rare, beautiful, and natural.”

AGTA also notes that “synthetic gems are not minerals.”

The association said it recognizes two definitions of the word “mineral”—that of the British Geological Survey, defining a mineral as “a naturally occurring substance with distinctive chemical and physical properties, composition, and atomic structure” and that of the U.S. Geological Survey, which defines a mineral as a “naturally occurring inorganic element or compound having an orderly internal structure and characteristic chemical composition, crystal form, and physical properties.”

“The definitions are essentially the same, but the keyword in both that is important is use of the word ‘natural,’” said AGTA board member John Bradshaw.

“It’s important to indicate that synthetic gems are not considered minerals, because minerals are natural, and synthetics are not.”

Source: Nationaljeweler

UK synthetic diamond firm told ads cannot describe diamonds as ‘real’

Ads for synthetic diamond jewellery have been banned after the UK company behind them, Skydiamond, did not make it clear they were not real.

Even though the strapline of the newspaper advert was the “world’s first and only diamond made entirely from the sky” and a social media ad said “love is… a diamond gift made from the sky”, there were complaints from the National Diamond Association.

The advertising regulator upheld the complaints and concluded that the ads were misleading and said they could not appear again in the same form, including on the company’s website without, better explanation.

Skydiamond, the trading name for The Sky Mining Company Ltd, was told by the Advertising Standards Authority not to use the terms “diamonds”, “diamonds made entirely from the sky” and “Skydiamond”, and not to describe its synthetic products “without a clear and prominent qualifier”.

The firm was told by the ASA that it must use terms such as ‘synthetic’, ‘laboratory-grown’ or ‘laboratory-created’, “or another way of clearly and prominently conveying the same meaning to consumers” and were not to use the claim “real diamonds” to describe synthetic diamonds.

Sky Mining said both the ads and extensive information and graphics on its website set out that their diamonds were manufactured in a laboratory, with detailed information on the production process on its website.

The company said the very brand was built on the premise that their diamonds did not come from the earth and do not have the negative environmental impacts associated with diamond mining, with all components required sourced from the sky: atmospheric carbon dioxide (as a source of carbon), rainwater (as a source of hydrogen) and renewable energy from solar and wind power.

As explained on the company’s website, Skydiamonds are made from carbon dioxide and hydrogen extracted and produced using proven industrial processes and combined to form methane in a biological process, with methane fed into chemical vapour deposition machines in which diamonds developed at a high temperature over 14 days.

It says for every carat of Skydiamond produced, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by 99.79% compared to mined diamonds, and that compared to growing diamonds in a laboratory, mined diamonds produce 4,383 times more waste, use 2.14 times the energy and 6.8 times as much water.

The ASA acknowledged that further information on the Sky Mining manufacturing process appeared on About Us pages of the website among other pages.

“However, in the absence of a clearly worded and prominent qualification such as ‘synthetic’, ‘laboratory-created’ or ‘laboratory-grown’, or another way of clearly and prominently communicating the same meaning, we considered it was still ambiguous as to whether the diamonds were synthetic or not,” the regulator said.

Source: DCLA