“THAT’S NOT MY DIAMOND!”

Hold up…

You’d be amazed at how many times a year jewelers hear customer’s say:

“That’s not my diamond!”

At least a couple of times, for sure.

It usually happens after the jeweler cleans their ring in the ultrasonic cleaner, or after they’ve had some minor work done, like prong repair, tightening, polishing, sizing… They hand the diamond ring back to the customer, and the person just stares at it. You can see confusion in their eyes. Their center stone looks so different now…

It doesn’t look right.

Something’s wrong.

Their diamond either looks too big, too small, too white, too bright…

And they say:

“That’s not my diamond!

Here we go again…

And once again I’ll say:

“It is your diamond!”

It’s just clean now…

Your diamond is bound to look different, especially through suspicious eyes, because let’s face it, people don’t trust jewelers. They hear all sorts of horror stories about jewelers ripping people off, and people are skeptical about leaving anything of value…

But believe me, it’s yours.

And it’s because people never want to scrutinize their diamond beforehand. They just rip it off their finger and hand it over. They only want to view it with a vulture eye once they pick it up.

It’s true.

And it’s true that diamonds look very different once they’re cleaned. Some people never clean their diamonds. Ever. This makes their stone look dark, dull, small… Lifeless! And once they’re been cleaned and polished up, it looks like a totally different diamond. People are amazed at the change. And it’s all because they don’t know what their diamond really looks like.

And this is sad.

Now it is possible that you could have had your stone stolen. I agree. But the odds of this happening are so rare, so minute, you could probably win the mega-millions long before that would happen.

Plus, most diamonds are not worth stealing.

Really. Half the diamonds on the market are low quality, I clarity, included stones. Jewelers have an abundance of these. They don’t want more.

Included stones are the ones where you can see visible flaws in the stone. Like black spots, clouds, feathers, lines, cracks.

If you can see imperfections with your bare eye, then it’s included, and the chance that a jeweler would want it, are slim. After all, what is a jeweler going to replace it with, another included diamond??? (included stones are the lowest clarity on the market) A better quality diamond Why???

It’s not worth anyone’s time or effort. You see, jewelers thrive off their reputation. They work hard to earn trust and loyalty, and to be the jeweler that you’ll shop at for the rest of your life. They live off community support, admiration, trust. And swapping out diamonds is not worth the risk.

And most couldn’t even if they wanted to.

Switching stones is not a 2 minute job.

Switching stones takes the right tools, the proper training, and a good amount of time.

Jewelers have to first match up your stone with a similar looking stone of equal mm size (if it’s bigger or smaller, it won’t fit in the head). Then they have to pull back the prongs, pop out the old stone without damaging it, stick in the new stone, push the prongs back, smooth them off, file them, polish them, polish the entire ring, then professionally clean it in an ultrasonic cleaner and steam cleaner. They can’t do all that with one quick cleaning. Not to mention the fact that the people cleaning your ring are salespeople, not jewelers anyway. Most stores don’t even do their repairs on the premises, either. Most send them out to a different location… You see what I’m talking about?

If your ring is being repaired, they could possibly have enough time. But really, it’s unheard of, and you shouldn’t fret about it.

What can you do to protect yourself?

Take responsibility with your ring and diamond. Memorize your stone. View your diamond (when it’s clean), and learn where your flaws are (99% of them will have visible flaws under the microscope). See what they look like, where they are. Is it a squiggle? A dot? A line? A chip on the girdle? Memorize them and learn to pick them out again later. Find those identifying marks that will allow you to pick your diamond out from a lineup. Now, and throughout life (for they will always look like that, forever).

Every diamond is different. They all look and appear different once they’re cleaned, too. Cleaning makes stones look bigger, brighter. The light hides the flaws better, it makes diamonds look whiter. They’re bound to look a little different (doesn’t your car look different once it’s cleaned?)

So get familiar.

Buy yourself a cleaner, a 10x jeweler’s loupe, and study your stone. Draw your own flaws out. Identify them.

If your diamond has a laser inscription, view it. Seeing that inscription makes identifying your stone a breeze.

If your diamond has a plot of the flaws (on a diamond report – see above), then look at them. Find those exact flaws in your diamond. Learning how to find them and memorize them is peace of mind.

And lastly, if you’re that nervous about a jeweler stealing your stone, then make sure you go back to the jeweler that sold it to you (hopefully you trust them), and have them clean and inspect your diamond.

Just make sure you view and inspect your stone before and after you drop it off to have anything done to it.

Just to be sure.

Because when it comes down to it, you are the only one that can truly stop diamond switching.

And if all else fails, make sure your diamond is insured. Because in life, you never know…

You could win the lotto…

You could.

Cheers! :)