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HOW TO SURVIVE THE COMING NON-DISCLOSURE DEBACLE:
An Interview with Arthur Groom, president of Eternity Natural Emerald, Ridgewood, New Jersey.

Arthur Groom knows what it is like to be the victim of non-disclosure. That’s why he has designed a state-of-the-art disclosure program for his emeralds that prevents consumer victimization.

This polished emerald was enhanced in preform.

Emerald that falls apart during cleaning.

Broken piece of emerald.

A 32-carat emerald before cleaning.

32-carat emerald after cleaning.

When he entered the emerald business in 1992, he had no idea of the extent to which the gems he was buying in Colombia had been clarity-enhanced with impermanent resins that required gems to be treated again and again to restore their original time-of-sale appearance. One 27-carat stone for which he paid top dollar split in half during routine re-treating.

That’s when Groom the victim turned into Groom the visionary. The constant need for retreatment was compounded by the difficulty of properly cleaning stones for further, sometimes frequent, high-pressure insertion of fissure-camouflaging agents. In 1996, Groom introduced a polymer filler called “Gematrat” which he hoped would be the answer to the emerald’s common need for cosmetic fracture-filling. It wasn’t.

So he invested millions of dollars to develop a custom filler for emerald that would not degrade or dehydrate over time. It’s called “ExCel” and Groom is so convinced of its longevity and stability that he guarantees his emerald face-lift process in writing for life. What’s more, he supplies the world’s most explicit gemstone identification reports for his emeralds via American Gemological Laboratories, New York, that specify both the type of filler and the degree to which it is present in the stone. “Using science, I have made a virtue of necessity,” Groom says, “developing an emerald enhancement so good it is worth disclosing. Maybe I should say ‘celebrating.’” Colored Stone sat down with Groom to discuss the growing non-disclosure crisis and what industry members can do to escape its ravages.

COLORED STONE: Except for the Yehuda family in diamonds, I don’t know of anyone who has made enhancement the foundation of a gemstone brand. When I talk to them and you I feel a genuine zeal about disclosure. Why are you such disclosure fanatics?

ARTHUR GROOM: It’s simple Golden Rule stuff: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I was burned badly by non-disclosure when I first got into the emerald business in 1992 and I decided that I would never take advantage of a customer the way I had been.

CS: I find it hard to believe you were burned. I mean everyone knows emeralds are a highly included stone that needs, shall I say, facial improvement.

AG: Sure, I knew there was some enhancement done, but I didn’t know the scale and frequency on which it was practiced on emeralds generally or the degree to which it was practiced on stones individually. Nor did I know how damaging these processes could be. One 27-carat stone which I bought, and which I thought needed only a light touchup, split in half during treatment from too much pressure.

CS: They say emerald enhancement is at least as old as Cleopatra and that this historic fact has legitimized treatment and even made it unnecessary to divulge it. Do you think the fact that something is customary justifies silence about it?

AG: You know how I’m going to answer that question—with a resounding no. And you also know the Federal Trade Commission agrees with me. But even if there once had been an accepted code of silence surrounding the disclosure of emerald treatment, there would be no justification to continue the silence. And I’m not just saying this for ethical reasons. I’m saying it for scientific ones.

THE DANGERS OF ENHANCEMENT

AG: Emerald treatment today is not practiced with the light oils of antiquity. And despite all you’ve heard about the widespread use of cedarwood oil, it’s not true. Cedarwood oil, first used in 1962, is just too transitory and, besides, it is synthetic. For the most part, emerald treatment is now practiced with polymers—most notably, Palma, a resin coating developed by Shell Oil in 1948 to protect wiring from sunlight, and Opticon, developed by Hughes Manufacturing as a sealant for marble. Both were applied to emerald without any modification or testing to see if they would be appropriate as a fissure-camouflaging agent. To prevent seepage, treaters added hardeners that make the substance nearly impossible to remove. That would have been okay, except that both Palma and Opticon discolor and degrade over time—requiring removal for retreatment. Gematrat, the product with which I was associated in the mid-1990s, had the same problems.

CS: Is this when you decided to invent the ultimate Clearasil for emeralds?

AG: That’s a pretty interesting analogy which presupposes that you see emerald’s frequent complexion problems as a kind of acne.

CS: Not quite. Acne scars looks far uglier than emerald wisps and veils. But, yes, lots of emeralds need face lifts.

AG: Well, we spent four years developing a specific cure for emerald’s complexion problems. It’s called ExCel and it doesn’t discolor or break down. Nevertheless, should it ever need removing, we can do it with no damage or even threat of damage to the stone. That’s why we guarantee the process for life.

CS: That’s what Yehuda does, also. No wonder both of you make the lifetime guarantee the basis of branding and marketing. And no wonder you insist that other emerald sellers tell customers the precise nature of any treatment they’ve used.

THE IMPORTANCE OF GRADING

AG: With so many possible repercussions from standard emerald treatments, it is necessary for consumers to know in what way and to what degree their stones were enhanced. AGL agreed with us on this point. So we asked them to develop a special emerald report for us that would specify the nature of treatment when present in a stone and the degree to which it is present using a six-grade system: none, insignificant, faint, moderate, strong and prominent. You can see how much these grades can affect the value of a stone. And that’s important.

CS: Does AGL take a 4Cs approach to emerald grading?

AG: Knowing whether or not a stone has been treated is only part of the value equation. So AGL rates a stone for aesthetic factors, too: color, brilliance, size and make. Now you have a complete picture of the stone. And that helps make comparisons for both beauty and price.

CS: Based on your disclosure program, what do you believe should be the norms of disclosure for selling emeralds today?

AG: The whole truth and nothing but the truth. I can’t tell you how many catalogs I see and how many Web sites I visit where emeralds are sold without any direct cue or indication that they have been enhanced. If I understand the FTC guides correctly, there should be at the very least an asterisk with every treated item that lead a shopper to a disclosure of treatment that can be weighed into the final purchase decision. What’s more, that disclosure has to be specific to the gem or gems being sold. You can’t say something like, “This emerald may have been treated using one of a variety of enhancements such as oil, resin or epoxy.” The words “may have been” are not responsible. They are a dereliction of basic duty. Either sellers do better or leave the selling to those who are honest about their products.

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