This Chicago Diamond Dealer Has 2 Big Lab-Grown Stones

In May, I had the chance to travel to Omaha, Nebraska, for Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders meeting, which, of course, included a number of events at one of the jewelry stores Warren Buffett owns, Borsheims.

There, I met with Amish Shah, the president of lab-grown diamond company Altr. Shah, who’s spoken out before about the marketing of lab-grown diamonds (taking a stance I completely agree with), claimed his company had created the world’s largest pink man-made diamond at 3.99 carats.

But, after I wrote about the stone, a longtime diamond dealer based in Chicago named Patrick Fay reached out to tell me that this pink was not the largest in the world and that he, in fact, had a pink that was bigger.

Fay owns a 5.03-carat man-made square cushion modified brilliant diamond graded by the International Gemological Institute (IGI) as a fancy intense orangy pink of I1 clarity that was irradiated to improve its color.

In addition, it came to my attention Friday that the Gemological Institute of America just published a lab note on another big lab-grown pink—a 5.01-carat square-cut diamond it graded as a fancy intense pinkish orange with a clarity equivalent to SI1.

The lab noted “the combination of size, color, and clarity made this the most remarkable CVD synthetic diamond GIA has tested so far.” (The GIA did not grade Fay’s man-made pink.)

Fay also owns a rectangular cushion modified brilliant lab-grown diamond that is 15.32 carats and, he says, is the largest lab-grown diamond in the world.

IGI graded the stone a G, SI2 while the GIA report states it is “near colorless” and “included.”

(The GIA does not give specific color or clarity grades on its Synthetic Diamond Grading Reports, a topic I have covered on this blog in the past.)

Fay said he has had the pink man-made diamond for two months, while he has had the large lab-grown white for a year and a half. Both have their grading report numbers inscribed on the girdle.

He declined to reveal what he is asking for either diamond and also asked that I not publicly disclose the grower.

I would guess, though, that many of our readers will be able to figure it out on their own, as there are a limited number of companies that can grow diamonds of this size (and want them to enter the market).