Hockley Mint has invested in a new state-of-the-art diamond testing equipment in order to combat the reported rise in laboratory-grown diamonds, particularly when mixed into melee parcels of supposedly natural stones.
Hockley Mint’s new Sherlock Holmes diamond detector rapidly detects every type of laboratory-grown diamond. Rather than testing individual stones with a probe, the machine can test stones in bulk quantities, instantly detecting CVD and HPHT laboratory-created diamonds.
The Sherlock Holmes diamond detector is portable, lightweight and easy to use, and can test diamonds in unmounted single stones, loose in plastic parcels and mounted in jewellery.
Gary Wroe, managing director of Hockley Mint, said: “While our diamonds only come from reputable sources that already take full responsibility for the stones they supply, we have introduced Sherlock as our own tool to ensure strict guidelines are being fully respected, in response to a rise in reports of laboratory-grown diamonds being included in parcels of natural stones.
As a leading British jewellery manufacturer, we want to ensure that we can continue to pride ourselves on the quality and integrity on which we have built our reputation.
In order to ensure we can be confident about the diamonds we supply to customers in our finished jewellery, this was an essential investment for us to make – we can now test all diamond parcels we receive quickly and accurately, at the touch of a button.”
