The Maison's documentation
Cartel CaratsPrivate showroom
To know, before owning
A precious stone crosses millions of years before reaching a finger. It also crosses countries, hands, and sometimes wars. The Maison believes no jewel should be bought without knowing where it comes from. This document tells what the Earth does, what men have done, and what we commit to do.
Let us first say what is true: no precious stone is born from bacteria. Diamond, emerald and sapphire are minerals — the Earth makes them alone, with heat, pressure and time. Only one gem is born of a living creature: the pearl. Here is how each comes into the world.
Pure crystallized carbon · born 90 to 120 miles beneath our feet
A diamond is carbon — the same element as coal or a pencil lead — subjected, deep in the Earth's mantle, to colossal pressure and to more than 1,800 °F. Most diamonds formed one to three billion years ago: they are older than any complex life on Earth. Ancient volcanic eruptions, through pipes of kimberlite, carried them up toward the surface, where man finds them.
Beryl colored by chromium · born of scalding waters in the rock
The emerald is a beryl, colorless when pure, that traces of chromium or vanadium tint with a green nothing imitates. It is born in hydrothermal veins: very hot, mineral-rich waters circulate through fractures in the rock and slowly deposit their crystals there. Nearly every emerald carries inclusions — its “garden” — which are the signature of its birth, not a flaw.
A single mineral, corundum · the color decides the name
Sapphire and ruby are exactly the same stone: corundum, an aluminum oxide among the hardest that exist. Traces of iron and titanium make it blue — that is the sapphire; a trace of chromium makes it red — that is the ruby. They form in metamorphic rock, where the Earth's crust was crushed and re-fired by the collision of continents — including the one that raised the Himalayas.
Nacre laid down by a mollusk · years of patience
Here is the only stone born of an organism: when a foreign body enters a pearl oyster or mussel, the animal protects itself by wrapping it in thousands of layers of nacre, year after year. No bacteria creates it — the animal itself does: a work of defense become jewel. Amber, the other organic gem, is tree resin fossilized over millions of years.
Each great deposit gives its stones a character gemologists can recognize — and that laboratories can now certify.
The Colombian mines of Muzo and Chivor have produced the world's most coveted emeralds for five centuries, of a deep, slightly bluish green. Zambia and Brazil are today's other great sources.
The Kashmir sapphire, with its velvety blue, is hardly mined anymore: it has become a collector's stone. Ceylon (Sri Lanka) has supplied luminous blues since antiquity; Madagascar has become one of the world's leading sources.
The Mogok valley in Burma produced the most famous “pigeon's blood” rubies in history. Mozambique is now the world's leading source. Burmese origin raises grave ethical questions — we return to this in Chapter III.
South Africa opened the modern age of the diamond in the 19th century. Botswana has turned its mines into a model of national development; Canada certifies the origin of every stone. Russia remains a major producer, under international sanctions since 2022.
Japan invented modern pearl farming; French Polynesia cultivates the black Tahitian pearl; Australia, the great South Sea pearls. The pearl is today almost exclusively a farmed gem.
A house that keeps this history quiet does not deserve your trust. The beauty of stones has financed wars and rested on men deprived of freedom. Saying it is the condition for never taking part in it again.
In the 1990s, armed movements financed their wars with diamonds. In Sierra Leone (1991–2002), the stone trade fueled one of the cruelest civil wars of the century. In Angola, UNITA financed decades of fighting with the mines it controlled; in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the deposits fed conflicts that killed millions. These stones were called “blood diamonds”: at the height of the crisis, they represented a significant share of the world market.
The history of diamonds and gems is also one of forced labor. In the 18th century, the diamond mines of colonial Brazil rested on the enslavement of tens of thousands of people; the mines of Golconda, in India, on conditions hardly less harsh. Still today, in certain artisanal mines — diamonds, Madagascar sapphires, rubies — children work, and indebted diggers live in a dependency that has a name: modern slavery. In Burma, the ruby trade finances a military junta; the United States and the European Union have placed it under sanctions.
In 2003, the international community created the Kimberley Process: a certification scheme that bans the trade of rough diamonds financing rebel movements. It has massively reduced the share of conflict diamonds. But one must be honest about its limits: it covers only rough diamonds, its definition of “conflict” is narrow, and it says nothing of state violence, child labor or social conditions. A Kimberley certificate is a minimum — not a guarantee of ethics.
What Cartel Carats commits to, for every piece, without exception.
Every stone comes with its origin, established by a recognized independent laboratory (GIA, SSEF, Gübelin). If the origin cannot be established, the stone does not enter the Maison.
No stone whose origin is tied to an armed conflict or a sanctioned regime — including Burmese rubies, however beautiful.
The Maison's settings are made of recycled gold or gold from certified supply chains, melted and worked in France.
Before any purchase, the Maison hands you the stone's complete file: origin, certificates, journey. You will know what you wear.
A question about a stone, an origin, a certificate?
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