Diamonds de Canada Ships its First Polished Gems
September 05, 21
(IDEX Online) - The newly-founded Diamonds de Canada will this week ship its first consignment of polished stones for grading in Las Vegas, before being sold.
The venture, launched in Yellowknife, on the edge of the Arctic Circle, by Michael Indelicato, of US wholesaler RDI, and industry consultant Benjamin King, accesses rough directly from the three major diamond mines in Canada's Northwest Territories.
The company is hoping a hi-tech approach will allow it to succeed where other diamond manufacturing enterprises have failed, largely because its labor costs are so much higher than India.
Tiffany and Co.'s Laurelton Diamonds and Arslanian Cutting Works both closed their polishing plants in Yellowknife in 2009, with the combined loss of 90 jobs. In 2000 Almod Diamond started cutting and polishing rough stones from De Beers.
"You cannot compete with India and China on a per carat basis doing it the conventional way," Benjamin King, interim CEO, told Canadian public broadcaster CBC.
"Our philosophy and the core of our business is to integrate technology that gives us a competitive parity."
He said they'd invested over $3m on very high tech automated cutting and shaping equipment. So far they've hired and are training three people locally.
Their diamonds will be graded by the American Gem Society in Las Vegas, then sent to the company's New York office, to be sold in Canada and the United States.
Pic courtesy Benjamin King, Diamonds de Canada