( An interview with Gary Gordon, CEO of Samuel Gordon Jewelers, conducted by Gordon Walker, General Manager of Friday Newspaper, published in 2003) GW: For the past several years, you have been advertising a new machine called “The BrillianceScope.” Just what exactly does it do? GG: The BrillianceScope enables customers to easily select a diamond that truly stands out! It actually rates the “light performance” of a diamond. It analyzes three things: brilliance, which is the return of white light back to the eye of the beholder; fire or dispersion, which is the diamond’s ability to display spectral colors, and finally, scintillation, which is sparkle or twinkle. GW: It’s my understanding that you were selected to be the first independent jeweler anywhere in America to unveil this technology to the public. How did you find out about the BrillianceScope, and why were you selected? GG: About nine years ago, a friend of mine in New York told me that this technology was going to be available to the jewelry industry. I contacted Gem-Ex Corporation, the manufacturer, and began negotiations to have the machine when the time was right. They decided to associate themselves with Samuel Gordon Jewelers because of our on-going interest in the latest developments within the jewelry industry, our previous advertising campaigns in which we featured the importance of the over-all optical appearance of diamonds, and because they felt that we had reached a stature in our industry that would enable this cutting-edge technolgy to attract the attention it deserves.. GW: Tell me a little bit more about the technology behind the BrillianceScope. GG: The BrillianceScope is a photospectrometer. It’s been in existence since the early 1930s and for decades has been used in industries such as aerospace, medical, optics, automotive, military and astronomy. The diamond application is used regularly at colleges in the Far East and at the Gubelin Gem Laboratory in Switzerland. For the past nine years, the Gem-Ex has scanned more than 600,000 diamonds and established rock-solid reliability. I have personally scanned several hundred diamonds and have marveled at the information that the machine has yielded. GW: When someone interested in the BrillianceScope comes in your store, what specifically do they see? GG: They see four things: first, the computer: a diamond is placed on the computer’s “eye”; and it then views the stone from five different positions. Then they see the monitor where they can actually watch the analyzing process. They then see a “light performance analysis document,” which is generated after the BrillianceScope has concluded its work, showing, by a bar graph method, how the diamond rates for its brilliance, its fire and its scintillation. This document is very important, because it enables both the jeweler and the buyer to fully understand how good the over-all “light performance” is of the actual diamond under consideration. Finally, they see the viewer, which allows them to look at the diamond under the exact conditions that the BrillianceScope’s “eye” saw the diamond. This is a separate apparatus that is fabulous for comparing two different diamonds and witnessing first-hand their respective light performances. GW: Now that the BrillianceScope has been in use for several years, has it been embraced by the jewelry industry? GG: The jewelry industry accepts change very slowly. The major diamond suppliers, called sight-holders, use the technology regularly, and, they provide the ratings generated by the BrillianceScope, as well as all the traditional data (color, clarity, weight and shape) to their customers as a routine matter. All retail jewelers, therefore, have easy access to the information that the BrillianceScope provides. The major gemological labaoratories in Europe, as mentioned before, use the technology, and here in America, the labs are presently experimenting with both “ray tracing” techniques, which give academic projections of what any given diamond’s light performance SHOULD be, as compared to photospectromic imaging (the BrillianceScope) which analyzes a given diamond directly and ascertains the ACTUAL light performance results of that particular diamond. We have been thrilled with the BrillianceScope, however, whatever the industry ultimately and finally adopts as “the standard” will be featured in our business and used on a regular basis. GW: Advanced technology in any field is always exciting. Any final thoughts? GG: The BrillianceScope enables jewelers to enlighten and inform customers in a way that is useful and important. The machine does not replace the human eye or human judgement. What it does do is give us a perspective that allows everyone to make a better and more informed diamond choice. After many years of looking at diamonds, we now look at them with more insight than we ever thought possible, and this can be shared with anyone interested in buying a diamond. If our job as jewelers is to inform, educate and provide great diamond choices for our customers, then, with this technology coupled with our experience, we will have performed our ultimate obligation.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 02:42:31 +0000
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