Comment regarding the issuance of gemstone reports without origin.

The origin determination of gemstones is a subjective opinion of the laboratory based on the availability of a variety of properties present in gemstones (particularly finger-print type inclusions, crystal growth features, chemical data and spectroscopic data). This data are compared to a reference collection of gemstones and literature data. Very clean gemstone may have limited information sets on inclusions which makes it more difficult to arrive to a conclusion regarding the country of origin. The final set of data may only be conclusive for the fact that a stone is natural but not synthetic. Therefore, in conclusion, it is not always possible to determine the origin of a gemstone, even if requested by the client.

Yours Sincerely, Dr. A. Peretti, FGG, FGA Director GRS Gemresearch Swisslab AG Switzerland