The lost shine of diamonds

“Vijayawada is the biggest bullion market and there are a lot of purchases made in the yellow metal from the city. However, there are several practices that jewellers adopt, which can prove to be betraying to the customer,” said former World Gold Council Director, Keyur Shah.

He visited the city as a part of inaugurating Gold Point centre and spoke about how customers are persuaded to buy diamond jewellery, which is now a passé in metro cities like Delhi and Mumbai.

“The concept of KDM jewellery is very high in the city, I observed. Any jewellery has to be hallmarked and KDM is banned about ten years back, which are carcinogens. Not only the worker who works with KDM (Cadmium) is prone to it, but also the person who wears it are likely to get affected,” said Shah.

“Diamonds are definitely not worth the investment. You are lured of high exchange rate and they might be certified but when you buy a diamond, you don’t know what its price is and what the exchange benefit would be. Plain gold jewellery is very safe investment to play with.

There are number of designs and styles that are catering to the working class of women as well as the bridal range. In cosmopolitan cities, diamonds are not at all preferred,” said Keyur.

“Gold jewellers with multi chain showrooms will buy back the diamond with certificate, which they redesign into another ornament to be sold. Customers should note that there is no such concept of ‘semi-precious stones’. There are precious stones or a duplicate.

Many jewelers invented the term semi-precious which is of zero value while you exchange and costs it when you buy. Majority customers ignore the standard of Silver metal when they buy. White gold, which is a combination of gold mixed with zinc oxide is nothing to lose and is considered as gold in complete. There has to be a hallmark for Silver jewelry as well which is not practiced, unfortunately,” added Keyur.

By Sowmya Sruthi