Ther's Something About Paper - Why aren't you MAD???

[yssie]

GIA and AGS going belly up because the public is increasingly dumbed down and lazy is a frightening but plausible prospect.

I gotta get Kenny Gem Lab going.
Same day turn around.
$10 per carat.
D IF guaranteed on every diamond.

We'll have an FCD department.
Every colored diamond submitted is guaranteed to be graded Flawless Fancy pure Red.

The public will be so happy with the bargains they'll get.

Throw in gem photography services and you'll be the most popular enterprise on PS

LOL, will that include the cost of photoshopping the yellow's to make them look red???

Wink

Come now, manipulating the photos would be cheating!
Fortunately we can get ahead of the curve, I don't believe KGL has the equipment to test for some treatments yet.

 

[mogster]

Kenny's point makes me wonder if EGL staggers their grades because if everything got D IF, wouldn't there be an inflation of sorts and it would drive down the prices of all EGL diamonds?

 

[Christina...]

I think this EGL diamond says it all, check out the colorimeter...

http://goodoldgold.com/diamond/9414/

 

[denverappraiser]

Kenny's point makes me wonder if EGL staggers their grades because if everything got D IF, wouldn't there be an inflation of sorts and it would drive down the prices of all EGL diamonds?

If you play a bit with the database you’ll notice that EGL graded diamonds are substantially less expensive than similarly described stones from GIA and AGSL. Often it's as much as 20, 30 or even 50%. You’ll also notice that stones graded by all EGL labs are not priced equally. This is precisely because of what is being discussed. You may be buying a diamond instead of the paper, but the paper is what sets the price and one of the items on the paper is the name of the lab. Diamonds are a HIGHLY competitive product based on a pretty arcane scale and where most of the transactions are between experts. This is where you’re seeing the ‘discount’ for certain lab's work product and this is what’s passing through to the database here. It’s ONLY at the retail sales counter that you’ll hear someone claim that it doesn’t matter, that the labs are all about the same, or that there is a simple way to convert from one grade to another so choosing the right lab will result in some sort of bargain. The pros know better.

There's an interesting downward spiral that happens. The reason to submit stones to an off-brand lab is to get a higher grade just like the reason to submit to GIA or AGSL is to ride the coattails of their brand name. If you don't get it, you shred the document and submit it somewhere else. Lab fees are generally a small fraction of the cost of a diamond and there's no test for how many times a stone was graded before it got the report that was presented to the final buyer. If a client consistently doesn't get what they want they stop using that lab. In the case of EGL, this means that a stone thats 'right', meaning that it matches GIA grading, will never see the light of day because it will be protested at the lab or resubmitted somewhere else. The marketplace tends to accumulate the stones that are the most divergent, not the most similar. The difference in price between EGL and GIA graded stones increases every year. As Wink pointed out at the beginning of this thread, one of the presenters in Vegas last week showed that in 2010 when they did a price study EGL-Israel averaged a 27% 'discount' when compared to GIA. Now it's near 40%. If EGL were percieved in the trade as consistent even if they were different, this would not be changing. Instead, their clients are playing the game and discarding the reports that are most similar to what would be expected from GIA. They are hoping for as big a difference as possible and perception tends to become reality.

 

[LJL]

I think this EGL diamond says it all, check out the colorimeter...

http://goodoldgold.com/diamond/9414/

holy freaking crap! do we know which EGL lab thats from?

 

[Christina...]

I think this EGL diamond says it all, check out the colorimeter...

http://goodoldgold.com/diamond/9414/

holy freaking crap! do we know which EGL lab thats from?

The lab report says EGL international. It's a great example of the topic though and of the price difference of comparable stones (on paper only of course) graded by reputable labs like GIA and AGS.
http://www.briangavindiamonds.com/diamonds/diamond-details/2.618-h-vs2-round-diamond-ags-bl-104059065019

ignorance is bliss I guess.

 

[WinkHPD]

I think this EGL diamond says it all, check out the colorimeter...

http://goodoldgold.com/diamond/9414/

holy freaking crap! do we know which EGL lab thats from?

The lab report says EGL international. It's a great example of the topic though and of the price difference of comparable stones (on paper only of course) graded by reputable labs like GIA and AGS.
http://www.briangavindiamonds.com/diamonds/diamond-details/2.618-h-vs2-round-diamond-ags-bl-104059065019

ignorance is bliss I guess.

That is a bit more extreme than I would normally expect to see. Makes me wonder if the machine was operating correctly.

If not Richard will have to drop his % offered again, as that is some SERIOUS grade creep.

 

[Rhino]

It's operating properly. That is an extreme example but a real one. It was also a brownie too. FYI I happen to have here two EGL graded OEC's around 3ct. One is graded H VS2 which is tetering on J/K in color and the other is a J SI1 testing as a low K. I also have an EGL graded OMB 1 1/4ct G VS2 testing as an H.

So two of the 3 examples I have here aren't off too much although the H VS2 is off considerably. Even still ... when you consider the price differential in a 3ct between a J and a K in color you're still talking thousands.

 

[WinkHPD]

Thanks Rhino.

Missed you at Vegas.

Wink

 

[Christina...]

It's operating properly. That is an extreme example but a real one. It was also a brownie too. FYI I happen to have here two EGL graded OEC's around 3ct. One is graded H VS2 which is tetering on J/K in color and the other is a J SI1 testing as a low K. I also have an EGL graded OMB 1 1/4ct G VS2 testing as an H.

So two of the 3 examples I have here aren't off too much although the H VS2 is off considerably. Even still ... when you consider the price differential in a 3ct between a J and a K in color you're still talking thousands.

Thanks for responding Jonathon. I noticed that the H VS2 was graded by EGL International, and it's often said around here that they are one of the less reliable of the EGL labs. I'm wondering which EGL lab graded the other stones that you mentioned.