The French government decreed, that all non-natural diamonds must be labelled as synthetic. The use of euphemistic terms like created, cultivated etc. is no longer legal.
Unsurprisingly the new law is welcomed by diamond traders the world over. Tom Chatham of Chatham Created Gems & Diamonds Inc. however, loses his cool (yet again).
Chatham, whose father, by the way, won a long legal battle in the US, allowing synthetic gems to be marketed as "created", draws his sword against the French, who, as he says, “...seem to think they own all adjectives and if it wasn’t created in France, it’s meaningless...”
“The French have been notorious for the attitude of ‘do it our way or the highway’,” says Chatham. “Look at the wine business. In 1891, the French decided that ‘Champagne’ could only be made in the Champagne region of France..." Obviously he thinks that is going way too far.
Be that as it may.
The core of Chatham´s argumentation is the claim, that for the general public "synthetic" is synonymous with imitation, substitute or fake.
Since, by and large, synthetic gems have the same physical and optical properties as the natural gem, synthetic diamonds are not fake, he says, but actual diamonds with the only difference that they were not produced by mother nature but in a laboratory or a factory.
Gary Roskin, editor of a newsletter called Roskin Gem News Report, comes to Chatham´s aid. "In gemology and mineralogy, “synthetic” gems are the real thing but made by man", Roskin writes. Now, the use of real in this context is highly problematic. In general linguistic usage real means the opposite of fake. Now, synthetic diamonds are, without a doubt, diamonds but of course they are not real in the sense of not synthetic.
In his newsletter Roskin says, what synthetic diamonds (in his opinion) are NOT.
The list contains some banal statements that synthetic diamonds are not Cubic Zirconia, synthetic Moissanite or natural diamonds. However, first and second in this list are claims that synthetic diamonds are neither fake nor artificial diamonds.
Now, whether the terms synthetic and fake can rightfully be regarded as synonyms may be open to discussion, but synthetic diamonds are not artificial?
Are you serious? What the dickens else?
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