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Credibility of different certificates.

Pecel

Rough_Rock
Joined
Apr 8, 2011
Messages
44
I've been digging into 'diamondology' for a while and what I have noticed is that different gem labs have different credibility. I found a topic at this forum from 2002 about low quality of IGI reports. Has something changed in recent years in you opinion? The same goes to HRD which I heard is the best grading laboratory in the world, but some say it is not. On the other hand GIA reports seem to cover less information as to the cut quality (e.g. they do not grade H&A). I want to buy a stone with IGI cert as the most 'common' here where I live. What are your thought about this?
 

Stone-cold11

Super_Ideal_Rock
Joined
Sep 9, 2008
Messages
14,069
Depends on where you are. HRD in Europe and IGI in East Asia is quite consistent but over in USA not so good.
 

denverappraiser

Ideal_Rock
Trade
Joined
Jul 21, 2004
Messages
9,051
IGI has a LOT of different formats of reports available that provide a remarkable variety of different information. They operate several different labs around the world and, as is pointed out above, they don't enjoy the same reputations.

Reputations are a funny thing. I've noticed HRD to be nicely consistent and a quality lab but many in the US disparage them as a second tier operation. The same thing happens with GIA in Europe. Some of this is marketing and some of it is the labs are under some peculiar market pressures that aggrivate it.

Labs have a very strange market dynamic that they suffer with. Imagine a theoretical lab that produces 80% of the reports that are 'accurate', whatever that means, 10% are too generous and 10% are too harsh. Overall, that's a darned good record and we'll imagin 100 stones graded. They're twice the speed and 2/3 of the price of their competition. Damn, that's a good lab, right? Now look at the details. The ones that are too generous are going to be proudly and loudly trumpeted by the sellers as 'certifed' by this excellent lab at whatever high grade they got while the 10 that are harsh are going to be quitely regraded somewhere else. Now we're looing at a lab with a market presence that is 88% right on and 12% generous (80/10/0).

So the market starts to discount them.

Now what happens? You get a bargain 88% of the time? That would be fine, but the dealers are already one step ahead of you. If they've got a stone that's dead on right but that is going to have to be discounted because of the lab branding, they're going to want to send THAT stone to a new lab to get a better pedigree, even though the grade is expected to come out the same. The discount goes away. If they recert half of the 'right' ones, but keep all of the generous ones we've now got 40 stones that are 'right' and still have 10 stones that are generous. That's down to 80% accurate (40/10/0). So the discount climbs, the percieved unreliability goes up, the payoff for rebranding their accurate work increases, and their reputation dives down the toilet. What's a lab to do? I point out that through all of this, our theoretical lab procedures are unchanged and the lab output is STILL 80/10/10. Business is going to be dismal because the clients, meaning the dealers, are only going to consider your service worthwhile 50% of the time so even though you're charging low prices, the accounting doesn't work out for them.

The answer seems to be to advertise.

THAT'S why the lab business is dominated by gigantic companies (Advertising is extremely expensive). That's why qulaity labs like PGS in Chicago and AGA in Philadelphia struggle to gain even tiny market shares even though they do quality work for reasonable prices. That's why GIA outsells AGSL in terms of lab services by a factor of 10.

And that's why IGI does so well in east Asia, HRD does well in the middle east and GIA owns the US.

There's one other choice... Embrace it, lower the grading standards, sell the fact that you have 'generous' certs, and laugh all the way to the bank.
 

Pecel

Rough_Rock
Joined
Apr 8, 2011
Messages
44
On uniondiamond.com I found some interesting stones. Look at them, their prices, quality and... grading labs

Two examples of very similar stones:

0.50 D SI1 IDEAL*/ex/ex by GIA - 1,890$
0.50 D SI1 IDEAL*/ex/ex by EGL - 1,050$

Around 1,050 $ you can find a GIA graded 0.50 diamond of:

I, SI2, IDEAL*/ex/ex
J, SI1, PREM/VG/VG and similar.

I think it tells everything about how are the EGL reports considered by suppliers...

Here in Poland, EU where I'm from, the most common are diamonds with IGI Antwerp reports. The most common might not mean the best. Do you have any thoughts about the headquarter of IGI in Antwerp reports?
 

Lky88

Rough_Rock
Joined
Apr 17, 2011
Messages
2
Hi, I am buying a diamond from NYC and they are only providing me with AGS cert , should I ask for a GIA cert and what is the different?
 
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