GIA Gemstone Gathering to host talk on Pearl Matters

[KAC]

GIA Gemstone Gathering to host talk on Pearl Matters
The talk will be delivered by Nicholas Sturman

The forthcoming GIA (Gemological Institute of America) Gemstone Gathering in Bangkok will host a seminar entitled ?Pearl Matters: Conch, Pen and Computerized X-Ray Micro-Tomography machine (CT machine).? The talk will be delivered by Nicholas Sturman, GIA supervisor of Pearl Identification. The focus would be on the conch and pen pearls and the state-of-the-art CT machine as used in pearl identification.

Sturman, professional with over 23 years dedicated to examining pearls, has been gemological advisor to the Bahrain Government?s Gem and Pearl Testing Laboratory and authored gemological publications, presented talks on gemology in the Middle East and several other countries, including the U.K., Switzerland and Thailand. He obtained his Fellowship (FGA) and Diamond Membership (DGA) from The Gemmological Association of Great Britain.

The GIA Thailand?s Gemstone Gathering is a free event and is slated on July 27, 2011 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel (formerly known as the Pan Pacific), Lumpini Park, Bangkok.

Full Article: http://diamondworld.net/contentview.aspx?item=6178

 

[SteveM]

Ken Scarratt tells me that GIA's new Micro CT technology takes under 10 minutes per pearl for setup, 16 minutes per scan then however long the analysis requires. At the time of Thomas Hainschwang's presentation on pearl fraud at AGA in February, quality scan times were in the neighborhood of four hours per pearl, making such analysis forbiddingly time consuming and expensive. Now that's progress!

Natural pearl counterfeiters beware.

 

[Bodecia]

Will this mean that eventually it will cost less to test pearls. Somehow I doubt it which is a great pity.

Also if it costs app. $200 to have 3 pearls tested how much does it cost to have full necklace tested and to have any cultured pearls that have made there way into the necklace marked so that they can be removed? If anyone has had this done and I am sure there must be please do share you pricing knowledge with the rest of us.

Dawn
http://shop.ebay.com/dawncee333/m.html
Pearl lover and Natural Pearl collector

 

[SteveM]

Micro CT technology is not incorporated in routine pearl testing. It is an extremely expensive process.