Nationwide Jeweler obtained a data launch on AGTA’s dedication via e-mail Wednesday morning. The discharge moreover was posted on the AGTA site, though it had been eradicated by Wednesday evening.
AGTA CEO John W. Ford Sr. acknowledged the data launch was “pulled by error,” and could possibly be reposted for the time being.
In step with the discharge, AGTA’s new rule bans the present of free gem stones or jewelry “comprising non-natural gem stones, ones which might be man-made, synthetic, or lab grown.”
AGTA acknowledged its sellers can nonetheless promote lab-grown gems in the event that they’re disclosed, nevertheless solely pure gems could possibly be made on the market for purchase at GemFair.
The affiliation acknowledged it enacted the ban to “thwart potential confusion,” confusion it sees going down inside the lab-grown diamond commerce and fears will impact the colored gemstone commerce, regardless that lab-grown colored stones have been spherical for better than a century.
When requested what led to the concept that confusion was occurring, or would possibly occur, inside the colored gemstone market, Ford acknowledged in an e-mail to Nationwide Jeweler, “Look no further than the chaos created by synthetics inside the diamond commerce … Our movement might be in response to considerable issues voiced by AGTA membership in relation to the opposed outcomes that synthetics would possibly moreover doubtlessly set off inside the colored gemstone commerce.”
Whereas the AGTA’s dedication has made headlines, it would not seem poised to have a giant impact on AGTA GemFair exhibitors, few of whom promote lab-grown gem stones anyway.
In his e-mail, Ford acknowledged out of the 260 exhibitors of free or set gem stones on the 2024 AGTA GemFair Tucson, solely two file that they promote synthetic gem stones inside the AGTA Provide Itemizing.
“Since sending out over (260) 2025 AGTA GemFair Tucson renewals, we’ve had an overwhelmingly optimistic response from the overwhelming majority of our exhibitors, considerably outweighing any detrimental responses,” he acknowledged.
In its data launch, AGTA moreover well-known that lab-grown gem stones lack the value inherent to pure gem stones, which are unusual and sometimes inimitable.
“AGTA felt that it needed to be crystal clear to patrons that after they attend an AGTA current, they know that they are solely buying mined pure gems from the earth,” acknowledged Kimberly Collins, AGTA board president and proprietor of Kimberly Collins Colored Gems.
“AGTA sellers delight themselves in sourcing superior gems which might be unusual, beautiful, and pure.”
AGTA moreover notes that “synthetic gems are normally not minerals.”
The affiliation acknowledged it acknowledges two definitions of the phrase “mineral”—that of the British Geological Survey, defining a mineral as “a naturally occurring substance with distinctive chemical and bodily properties, composition, and atomic building” and that of the U.S. Geological Survey, which defines a mineral as a “naturally occurring inorganic element or compound having an orderly inside building and attribute chemical composition, crystal type, and bodily properties.”
“The definitions are principally the an identical, nevertheless the important thing phrase in every that is important is use of the phrase ‘pure,’” acknowledged AGTA board member John Bradshaw.
“It’s important to level that synthetic gems are normally not considered minerals, on account of minerals are pure, and synthetics are normally not.”