GIA Finds Single Natural Diamond in Large Batch of HPHT Synthetic Melee

(IDEX Online) – The GIA has reported a strange find, with one natural stone in a package containing more than 1,000 undisclosed pieces of lab-grown melee submitted to its New York City lab.

Up to now, it has been the case that undisclosed lab-grown diamonds have been mixed in with packages of natural stones.

The GIA lab received a package of 1,102 melee diamonds with a total weight of 9.67 carats which were sent in for its melee analysis service. The GIA said the parcel did not include any notice of the stones’ origin.

Almost all of the stones (1,093) were referred by the lab for further testing. It discovered that 1,092 of them were HPHT synthetics grown, one was natural, and nine were outside of the GIA’s screening criteria.

“It is interesting to note that only one natural was found in this parcel of melee,” said the note. “This has been the largest percentage of undisclosed synthetic melee that GIA has seen.”