Direct Diamond Network

04/17/2026

Sally Morrison and Mark Klein discuss De Beers’ first beacon in 16 years and the mistake the industry made with lab-grown diamonds.

03/10/2026

Can you guess the identity of this rare 63.17-carat bi-color gem?

This crystal shows a pinkish-orange core surrounded by a gray-blue rim—visually reminiscent of watermelon tourmaline. GIA’s Bangkok laboratory performed advanced testing including Raman spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence, to reveal this gem’s identity.

This testing revealed it to be dumortierite—a rare aluminum borosilicate mineral known for its vivid color and strong pleochroism. Perfect crystals are uncommon, making this large, colorful, well-formed specimen among the most significant dumortierite crystals documented to date.

Learn more about this stunning crystal in a recent issue of G&G: https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/fall-2025-lab-notes-prismatic-bicolor-dumortierite-crystal?utm_campaign=g-g&utm_content=1773082320&utm_medium=organic-social&utm_source=facebook

02/27/2026

02/05/2026

The UK-based miner also said the number of carats sold, and the average per-carat price achieved had both fallen by 20 per cent in 2025, compared with 2024.

01/02/2026

While best known for its deep, wine-red hue, garnet, January’s birthstone, is actually a family of gems that spans vivid greens, warm oranges, rich purples and even color-change varieties.

Garnet has been treasured for thousands of years as a symbol of strength and vitality and has adorned many civilizations across history. Egyptian pharaohs wore red garnet necklaces, Roman officials used garnet intaglios to seal important documents and Victorians loved garnet jewelry, importing large amounts of garnet from Bohemia (today’s Czech Republic).

More recent discoveries of demantoid, spessartine and tsavorite have broadened the garnet family’s appeal, keeping this classic gem group at the forefront of jewelry design and collector interest. What’s your favorite garnet color?

Learn more about January’s birthstones on our website: https://bit.ly/49450ft

09/18/2025

The UK miner Vast Resources is offering parcels totaling 135,000 carats at a series of public and private tenders from now until the end of October.

08/26/2025

As announced earlier this year, GIA will launch revised evaluation services for D-to-Z laboratory-grown diamonds. 💎 The GIA Laboratory-Grown Diamond Quality Assessment will use descriptive terms rather than the GIA-developed nomenclature for natural diamonds. The laboratory-grown diamonds will be described as ‘Premium’ or ‘Standard’ based on an overall assessment of their clarity, color and cut.

“Using descriptive terms for the quality of laboratory-grown diamonds is appropriate as most fall into a very narrow range of color and clarity,” said Pritesh Patel, GIA president and CEO. “Because of that, GIA will no longer use the nomenclature created for natural diamonds to describe what is a manufactured product.”

This new service will be available on October 1. Current GIA laboratory services for D-to-Z color laboratory-grown diamonds will be available until September 30.

Learn more about this new service, including detailed grading criteria and pricing information, here: https://bit.ly/45DCzEV

06/19/2025

04/30/2025