Verify pearl, rubies before purchase: Danat

Manama : Deceptive pearl and misrepresented ruby could creep into the Bahraini market if vendors are not careful, Bahrain Institute for Pearls and Gemstones (Danat) has warned.

“Some companies have been trying to sell a form of cultured pearl to jewellers calling it natural. This particular form of pearl, although cultured, is very hard to distinguish from natural pearls,” said Kenneth Scarratt, CEO of Danat. He urged jewellers as well as customers to use third-party verification before purchase.

Explaining this further he said, “On the pearl front there is the treatment issue but it isn’t as prominent as with the coloured stones, it’s more a question about what it is - Is it natural or is it cultured? There’s a lot of questions one needs to ask and that questions need to be answered through third-party verification. We put a trade alert out about this particular practice. Some companies are using natural pearls as seeds for culturing so when you look at it through an x-ray it will look as natural but we can distinguish with sophisticated instruments,” he said.

Misrepresented ruby is another issue he faced in recent months, Scarratt said. 

“Recently, we have been seeing a fair amount of ruby that has been filled with lead-glass. It’s a fractured material, opaque and when a treatment is applied to it, which involves the induction of molten lead-glass into the fractions, it becomes transparent, giving what looks like a beautiful ruby whereas, in reality, you have a lot of lead-glass in there,” he said.

“I have spoken to a number of jewellers. I have been in conversations with them, a number of them are concerned about it. They are adopting this process of third-party verification,” he said. 

“There is a lot of misrepresentation out there, not just in Bahrain but all over the world. One of the biggest concern is that there is a lot of synthetic diamonds in the market. We have instruments that will test this because this is such a big issue. Ruby, sapphires and emeralds, most of the concerns there has to do with treatments, a different form of heat treatment, different forms of fracture fillings and so on,” he added.

“When somebody buys jewellery, what is to be considered is whether he/she would like it, whether one loves it. You have to have that feeling for your jewellery, it’s part of your life. Only after that, you would be thinking of whether the price is right. But before you ask that question, you have to do research. Third party verification is extremely important in both pearl and coloured gemstone and diamonds,” he said.

Danat is a subsidiary of Mumtalakat, the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom, with a vision to become the world’s preferred institute for natural pearl and gemstones third-party verification services and scientific research.