SILVER CUBIC ZIRCONIA RIBBON PENDANT
Christine Alexander Fine Jewellery
This gorgeous Sterling Silver pendant has a beautiful sparkly Cubic Zirconia stone as its centrepiece. This pendant looks beautiful on! The pendant is 17mm x 10mm and the stone is 5mm. Clearly marked 925 for Sterling Silver on the reverse.
This listing is for the pendant only; if you require a chain I recommend this one. Matching (though smaller) stud earrings are also available.
Cubic zirconia, as a Diamond substituent and jewel competitor, has been seen as a potential solution against conflict Diamonds and the controversy surrounding the rarity and value of Diamonds. This is attributed to confirmed evidence that there were price-fixing practices taken by the major producers of rough Diamonds, in the majority attributed to De Beers Company known as holding a monopoly on the market from the 1870s to early 2000s. However, De Beers and Co do not have as much power over the market, the price of Diamonds continues to increase due to the increased demand in emerging markets such as India and China. A closely related issue to this monopoly was the emergence of conflict Diamonds. It has been shown that the Kimberley Process is not as effective in decreasing the number of conflict Diamonds reaching the European and American markets as intended. A 2015 study from the Enough Project, showed that groups in the Central African Republic have reaped between US$3 million and US$6 million annually from blood Diamonds. Diamond substituents, therefore, have become an alternative to boycotting altogether the funding of such unethical practices. However, concerns from mining countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo are that a boycott in purchases of Diamonds would only worsen their economy. Therefore, it is argued that in the short term Diamonds substituents could be an alternative to reduce conflict around the market of Diamond mining but a long term solution would be to establish a more rigorous system of identifying the origin of these stones.