Where do you start with Choosing Your Diamond? A girls best friend, the rarest stone in the world, the hardest substance on earth, a treasure from the deep, or simply the finest way to say ‘I love you’. All of this and more is true of a diamond. So when it comes to Valerio Jewellery diamond sourcing we are very particular about the quality and the source of our stones.

Greg Valerio has been at the forefront of driving ethical providence in the jewellery profession for over 20 years and as a result has developed an extensive knowledge that helps you decide which diamond you want to choose for that moment of magic. In choosing our diamonds, we insist upon transparency and traceability in the supply chain, as well as the quality of the stone. This quality is captured and efficacy is captured in the 5 C’s.

Transparency & Traceability

Almost all jewellers like to protect their sources, believing this adds value to their brands. For Valerio Knowing your Source is important. Therefore we always source natural stones, we aim to source from direct mining operations so we can trace the diamonds back to source and also we know the cutting and polishing facilities. Therefore we always try to use diamonds from Canada or Botswana, understanding these to be the most traceable sources available to us.

However we also need to be honest about the challenges faced in sourcing diamonds for jewellers. There are three types of supply chain in diamonds.

• Vertically integrated
• Enclosed system but mixed sources
• Mixed sources

Each of these supply chains have differing levels of transparency. Vertically integrated sources means mine too retail, and able to be tracked, certified and assured to the customer. CanadaMark™ and ForeverMark™ are examples of this. Good examples of best practice in large scale diamond mining. An enclosed system but mixed sources means that the particular diamond mining company will not include any rough stones into it’s own chain of custody, but the stones themselves will originate from a number of countries, example being De Beers, who mine in a number of countries, but bring all their production together for sorting, so the source country origin is lost when the stones are mixed together for grading. General mixed sources are aggregated from any mine, large or small scale operations and are sold purely for the cut, clarity, colour and carat weight, with all provenance lost. The vast majority of smuggled, illegal and conflict stones are moved through the mixed sources route to market.

At Valerio Jewellery we source our stones from vertically integrated sources, and where a stone cannot be sourced, we choose our stones through the enclosed system. We will not source stones from the third level of general mixed sources.  

The Five C’s

Cut – Diamonds are a force of nature combined with the creative genius of those who cut them. We always choose diamonds that are ideally cut to refract the light in the perfect symmetry that refracts the ideal light through the stone.

Clarity – When we choose our diamonds we always look for stones that are not below a VS1 or VS2 – very slight inclusions that cannot been seen by the naked eye.

Colour – Colour is diamonds is so important. Our customers are looking for that white light refraction or intense sparkle that is synonymous with diamonds. Therefore we do not source diamonds that fall below a F, G or H rare white colour.

Carat Weight.

The price of diamonds are not always proportional to the size (carat weight) that you may choose. For example a 1 ct. stone is not twice the price of a 1/2 ct. stone. The bigger the diamond, the more rare it is, therefore the more expensive it becomes.

These are the dimension for the most popular cut of diamond, the Brilliant Round Cut.

0.25ct = 4mm. 0.35ct = 4.5mm. 0.50ct = 5mm. 0.75ct = 5.9mm. 1.0ct = 6.5mm

Conflict Free 

We do not shy away from the challenges that the diamond trade faces. Conflict, smuggling and exploitation are not un-common in the diamond trade and we are active, not only in sourcing diamonds that are free of conflict, but also in advocating for the rights of small-scale diamond communities. The resources of the land belong to the people of the land. This is not easy, but we remain focussed on the long arc of justice in diamonds.

The Kimberley Process Declaration 

The diamonds procured by Valerio Jewellery and invoiced to our customers have been purchased from legitimate sources not involved in funding conflict and in compliance with United Nations resolutions. The Seller hereby guarantees that these diamonds are conflict free, based on personal knowledge and/or written guarantees provided by the supplier of these diamonds.

An important point for our customers to understand, the Kimberley Process is NOT a consumer certification scheme. it cannot and is unwilling to address systemic human rights abuses in the diamond supply chain, alongside acting as a mechanism to root out smuggling and other illegal activity. This is why our diamond sourcing goes beyond the Kimberley Process as mentioned above. 

Knowing your source, and traceability from mine to retail is the best option open to us at the moment. We are committed to working and advocating for better solutions in diamonds.