HRD, GIA, EGL - UGH

[marquisemadness]

I am looking for some opinions please. We have been looking at some different stones for several weeks now and the one we really love is HRD cert. One guy says that''s a great cert, one says no way and so on

Now the confusion sets in. I would really appreciate some thoughts on the different certs. My own research makes me believe that HRD is comprable to GIA.

Thanks in advance
Marquisemadness

 

[oldminer]

Some will tell you HRD is a rock solid lab and very similar to the GIA. Others will argue that it is a weaker lab and not as reliable as GIA. In other words, they are tough enough to please or anger people depending if you are buying, selling, trading, dealing, etc. If a lab does the job right, you have firms that believe you are too tough. If a lab does the job loosely, you will have folks saying your lab is weak. There is no winning or proving this point. There is no use in the argument, either.

What I truly suggest is assume any grading, by any lab, is contestable by somebody who believes they know more than someone else. You should only buy a diamond you really like and want to buy. Does it really matter if it is a color or clarity grade different to some other lab or some other grader? That's the way every diamond will be anyway, so what is the point of the worry? It is a fact of life and you need to be a thorough shopper and cautious. Buy what you like, possibly consider having it re-checked by YOUR reliable expert, and then forget about it...ENJOY IT.

If you can follow this advice, you'll be a whole lot happier and get out of the stress sooner.

I know people want to believe that every diamond graded by GIA or AGS is perfectly graded. We want it to be that way, too, but it is not the case. They are great labs and super careful with their reputations, but they grade with human graders and have human faults on occasion. Nothing about a diamond is changed by grading, paperwork or documents. It is the diamond that represents your sentiments and feelings. The paperwork is like the pedigree of a puppy. The character of the owners will be what is reflected when the doggie grows up, not the paperwork. Luckily for most of us, a diamond is not affected by who owns it.

 

[valeria101]

If prices would be definitely different for one grade up or down when shopping at different sellers, this subjective touch of grading would be quite a disaster... but prices are just as unclearly cut as grades. The whole story needs the proverbial grain of sald - which David provides.

You might consider the question: will a lab recertify the same stone with the same grades always ? Actually... no.

 

[Hest88]

Of course what Dave and Valeria say is technically correct. However, if all you want to know is whether or not you should be able to trust the HRD cert as much as any other, I'd say yes. I would trust an HRD as much as I would a GIA or AGS--realizing, of course, that nothing is infalliable.

 

[Nicrez]

True enough, nothing and no one is infallible! I have seen cleaner GIA SI1's than VS2s, as many people here can attest.

I depends on the individual grader. Also, I had a GG look at my stone and declare it a D, as it is an E, and has NO florescence. Everyone has different eyes, but the lab policies of being stricter at HRD and GIA, and AGS tend to make them closer to the mark than indendant labs of smaller name or EGL.

Also note EGL from different countries ALSO varies in closeness. So again, grain of salt with all these responses...

 

[niceice]

David summed this up really well

All of the gemological laboratories are capable of errors and ommissions, we see it every day. We just sent a GIA Graded, 1.06 carat, F color, VS-2 GIA #13051233 because we noticed an additional inclusion along the girdle edge of the diamond visible within the triangular upper girdle facet that was not indicated on the plotting diagram during our evaluation process. Our first inclination was that the inclusion was simply not visible on the copy of the lab report which was faxed to us by the cutter, but then when we received the original lab report (they are often shipped separately because of the cost of insured shipping / weight for large parcels) we were able to confirm that the inclusion was not indicated on the lab report... In short, the GIA either missed the inclusion entirely or simply neglected to mark the inclusion on the plotting diagram - we feel that the second option is more likely because it was not difficult for us to find... And so the diamond has been sent back to the GIA so that the correction to the lab report can be made, the stone is beautiful. Is the GIA the only lab that does this? No - we ran through a parcel of diamonds from another supplier a few months ago which was graded by the AGS with consequitive numbers on the lab reports and twenty of twenty had nothing indicated on the plotting diagrams... Part of our jobs as legitimate dealers is to catch these errors and send the diamonds back through the labs for correction, let's face it, we're all human and capable of errors during the process of our daily duties, so we're not making a statement regarding the competency of the various gemological laboratories, but rather confirming the fact that they are in essence "only human"... And if they were machine graded, the grading would only be as accurate as the programming so let's not go there because it's not an option... Yet.

This might explain a bit more about why we're so vigilent in suggesting that "virtual" dealers who represent diamonds that they've never seen to their customers and then drop ship those diamonds direct to the customer from their suppliers without ever seeing them are doing a disservice not only to their customer, but to our industry as a whole. Some of these dealers may offer a price that is slightly better than those of us who personally evaluate the diamonds that we sell, but at what cost is the "savings" to the customer if the diamond being purchased does not match the diamond described on the lab report? Sure, you can have the diamond evaluated by an independent GIA Graduate Gemologist (refer to the list of appraisers at the top of this page via the "appraisers" link) and we suggest that everybody does regardless of where they purchased their diamond, but that money is "wasted" if the gemologist has to tell you that the diamond doesn't match the lab report, or if they have to tell you that the diamond is beautiful, but contains additional (unexpected) inclusions that are not indicated on the lab report as in the case of our GIA Graded diamond described above. The point being that if you purchased that diamond from a virtual dealer based on the plotting diagram that appears on the copy of the GIA diamond grading report that indicates that the primary inclusions (grade makers) are the few diamond crystals located in the center of the table facet, you might not be all that happy to learn that you've just paid $160.00 + - in appraisal fees to discover that there is an additional grade maker located off to the edge of the diamond that was never indicated. It would be like buying a blue car on-line and thinking that the interior was grey and then finding out that it was grey with blue trim - the difference might be acceptable to you, but you had a right to know about it when you purchased the car, not after you paid to have it shipped in... Now we "know" that the fact that the inclusion was not disclosed at the time of sale opens the door for cancelling the sale due to ommission and possibly getting the dealer to pay for the appraisal fees (without a fight?) but that's not the point... The point is that the dealer should have done their job / earned their profit by actually "representing" the diamond from the beginning... They should have "looked" at it and then decided whether the diamond grading report accurately represented the diamond instead of merely selling you a piece of paper and hoping that their customer liked the diamond enough when they saw it to keep it regardless of the differences. On an even better note, some of the "virtual" sites are operated by people who's background is in software and computer programming, not diamonds - so how capable are they of "looking" at a diamond if they get their hands on it anyway? Asked another way, if you were going to purchase a business... Would you accept the appraisal of a person who merely flipped through a phonebook, looked at the ad and then listed the property, or would you want to work with somebody who actually inspected the property, opened the books and appraised the property based upon actual knowledge and experience?

So many of our virtual "competitors" are nothing more than a script purchased or written by somebody that wanted to "catch the wave" of on-line diamond sales... Wouldn't it be nice if they were actually in the diamond business so that they could actually voice an experienced opinion about the diamond being offered for sale? To think

 

[marquisemadness]

Thanks for all of the input. I think my main frustration comes from one particular Jewler who is trying to convince my boyfriend that we can only trust his GIA "true" certified stones. The one that we are looking at is HRD color D and he is telling us that is probably isn't a "D" (even though he hasn't seen it and we have), it is probably an "F" or a "G" because it is not a GIA cert.

Even to a novice like me, it is obvious the stone is a "D". My gut tells me to not even listen to this guy but my boyfriend wants to be armed with information so your input is very much appreciated.

Thanks again
marquisemadness

 

[valeria101]

Among the detractors of this grading plot (and if you liked colored stones more chances are you will hear quite a bit of this), one thing is often reminded: that the diamond grading labs do not guarantee their grades to be exact, but admit to soem degree of error. I could be wrong, but GIA's admitted level of error for color would be half a grade? This means that upon recertification, a stone could turn one grade up or down depending on... weather.

On ths background of uncertainty, someone says that one lab or another consistently overstates or understates a grade. They better have a LARGE sample to prove it!

Some tried to cehck a sample like this, but it is an old report, and I am not aware of any new attempt like this. Clearly an expensive, undesirable experiment...

As far as I can tell, what you mention is a simple sale tactic, nothing more, nothing less

 

[Nicrez]

Now that you say it's a graded D, I think these grading labs have "master stones sets" that they use to grade color against. That said, in my book, a D is a D when comparing. At worst it's an E...So?!

I have an E that looks like a D without the master stones next to it. But when we put it next to a D, I thought this stone was TOO yellow.

You can tell a D... a G, H, maybe some room for discussion, but I would say a D is a D when comparing stones, side to side, like a pro should!

Never listen to anyone with such pre-defined standards. They to me epitomize a lack or knowledge and intellectual growth, and they will always "know what they know". if on;y the world and all the information in it where THAT static!

 

[marquisemadness]

Well my gut feeling has been confirmed. I just had a long frustrating conversation with the gentleman in question.

His words, "I GUARANTEE if you send it to GIA it will come back as an F more likely a G" - considering he's never seen the stone, HMMM

"Nobody sells below the Rap Report"

He then went on to tell me he has been in the business for 30 years and he has never heard of HRD, but he's not trying to sell me one of his diamonds, his son and a friend of ours go back a long time and he's just trying to help us out

I was feeling a bit angry when I hung up the phone but reading the preceeding posts has confirmed my feeling that it's really about how I feel about the stone. If I feel it necessary I can always have the stone sent to GIA.

Thanks,
Marquisemadness

 

[Giangi]

Actually, HRD is usually one grade stricter than GIA on DEF colors. An HRD-F is likely to get an E-rating at GIA. I say likely, not positively certain. Grading is done by humans and it's subjective to a degree.
HRD is really an excellent lab in my opinion. It is definitely comparable to GIA. Its main lab is in Europe, so of course they grade according to European standards, but they are THE lab over here.

 

[valeria101]

----------------
On 4/20/2004 2:45:54 PM Nicrez wrote:




I have an E that looks like a D without the master stones next to it. But when we put it next to a D, I thought this stone was TOO yellow.

----------------

M'am, you're something! I'm jalous, actually. I could never tell those apart - completely useless.

 

[marquisemadness]

We put the stone next to a GIA "D" and an EGL "F". I could not see any difference between the two D's but depending on the light there seemed to be a bit of yellow in the EGL F. When we looked at the F on it's own there was no way I could tell it was an F. So the fact that this guy can tell me it's not a "true" D without even seeing it----he must have psychic powers