A diamond may not be what it appears to be, or at least not belong to whom it appears to belong to. Serial numbers work in identifying electronics and cars – why not diamonds? Well, historically speaking, there was no way of getting a serial number onto a diamond without damaging it. But lasers have changed everything!

Diamond serial numbers are used by the Kimberley Process certification scheme, and serial numbers also allow the diamond industry and police to work with databases to track lost or – heaven forbid – stolen diamonds.

A serial number incised on a certified diamond's girdle allows an appraiser to confirm that the diamond in question matches the certificate it's supposed to. However, he notes, the only way to be completely sure that the certs match the diamond is to verify its measurements and note its blemishes and inclusions.

After all, anyone with the technical knowledge and equipment can inscribe a random serial number on a diamond. In fact, master diamond thieves take stolen diamonds to be re-polished so that a lasered-on serial number is removed, which would certainly appear to contradict the widely held belief that a serial number is permanent!

On the other hand, there are only a very few lasers in the world capable of removing a diamond's serial number with a minimal affect on the diamond's value, which has already been reduced by having its number removed and forces the diamond to be traded illegally.

Sources in the Antwerp diamond polishing sector have said that it's even more unusual to find an expert polisher who knows how to remove a serial number as well as how to re-cut the diamond to keep as much of its value as possible and make it impossible to identify.

Fred Cuellar, author of How to Buy a Diamond, writes:"I have to hand it to all those companies that keep trying to come up with some new gimmick to hook us on but come on, let’s put this in the simplest of terms. If we already have the fingerprint (the plotting) of the diamond we don’t need to carve our initials into it to prove it’s ours."

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