GIA Announces Diamond Sealing Service

[Modified Brilliant]

New GIA Sealing Service for Diamonds (from IDEX e-mail)

(August 6, '09, 11:28 Edahn Golan, India)

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) on Thursday unveiled a new Diamond Sealing Service, during the IIJS trade show in Mumbai. The service is offered for D-to-Z diamonds that carry a GIA Diamond Grading Report or a GIA Diamond Dossier®, and colored diamonds holding a GIA Colored Diamond Grading Report.

Donna Baker, GIA president and CEO, made the announcement with Nirupa Bhatt, GIA managing director for India and the Middle East.

The new service seals the diamond with its key grading information in a credit card-sized, tamper-resistant package. The sealed package keeps the stone, its report number and its primary gemological details such as report date, shape and the Four Cs, together in a secure, easy-to-display packet.

The sealed package contains multiple security features, including the GIA hologram. The packet shows that the diamond has been graded by GIA and the information in it matches the stone, which will help prevent attempts to misrepresent the item and its report.

The Sealing Service can be ordered at the time of grading for a fee of $9 per stone. A diamond can also be resubmitted for the Sealing Service for the $9 charge, with an additional grading fee applied.

Baker said, “GIA has been vigorously offering a wider array of services to accommodate the needs of its many different customers throughout the industry and the general public.”

Bhatt said, “As the world’s largest diamond cutting and manufacturing center, India is also a clearing house for many diamond markets, some of which increasingly request this type of benefit. We are pleased to offer it to all our clients in this region and around the world.”

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[Moh 10]

Whom is this intended to protect?
The final customer?
The retail seller?
The business before the retail seller?

I can't imagine anyone trusting this packaging and not inspecting the loose stone.
Too much money at stake.

If the stone is to remain sealed from the GIA to the customer's hands that means PS vendors could not test/photograph GIA diamonds since they'd be sealed.

I've never had much confidence in these "tamper-proof" seals on aspirin, etc.
Seems like a waste of money that provides a false sense of security.
A criminal mind can get around safeguards.

 

[YoungPapa]

Moh,

We sent a loose GIA diamond to Egypt about two weeks ago. When the package arrived the customer sent us a *scathing* email asking if we thought he was "stupid". He said no reputable seller would ever sell a diamond that wasn''t sealed.

It all worked out fine once we explained that GIA doesn''t seal, but apparently this is pretty standard in other parts of the world...

 

[denverappraiser]

This is already standard procedure in the Middle East although most of the rest of the world seems to be holding to the idea that the paperwork is meant to support the facts of the diamond but that you’re still buying a diamond, not a ‘certificate’. It does make it more difficult for a merchant to sell mismatched diamonds and documents but, as everyone here knows, it can hide all manner of other problems by making it impossible to inspect the stone. Already the cutters have taken note of this. Stones that look good on paper but don’t do so well in person tend to end up in the market in Dubai sealed in little plastic packets (IGI, HRD, EGL and other GIA 'competitors' are all already in this business and have been for years by the way). This also makes it more expensive for dealers who want to submit a to 2 or 3 different labs and choose the report they like the best, discarding the others.

It will be interesting to see if this takes off but I imagine it will. The implicit backing by GIA that this is a reasonable way to sell diamonds is not a small thing. It creates an interesting problem for sellers and appraisers. If they buy traditional GIA services they can show the stone as well as their own tests (Sarin, ASET, IS, H&A, photographs or whatever) but if customers are led to expect that a stone should be in a sealed packet when they take delivery then the dealer is going to need to do without these things or to send it back to GIA for a new inspection and sealing after they’ve done their own tests. If a customer or appraiser wants to look at it and decides, for whatever reason, that this isn’t the one for them then it needs yet another trip back to GIA. Realistically, the only way for a dealer to sell these things is to make it that the return privilege is voided or a substantial ‘restocking’ fee is charged if the seal is broken.

I can definitely see how this benefits the GIA and certain types of dealers but it seems like a disaster for nearly everyone else, especially consumers. It’s doubly curious because all GIA documents currently contain a disclaimer that you should not rely on this report without consulting an expert gemologist and their school for gemologists teaches that gemologists should actually look at stones before giving an opinion about them. It’s good advice on both counts but this program completely undermines it.

Neil Beaty
GG(GIA) ICGA(AGS) NAJA
Professional Appraisals in Denver

 

[kroshka]

My thought from a consumer''s point of view is that it assures the consumer that the stone being purchased indeed is the stone described in the report (not a switched or fake stone). This may seem ridiculous for stones being sold here in the US, etc where reputable vendors have great return policies and ways to verify a stone, however if I were a consumer looking to purchase in India or other parts, usually there is no such thing as a return policy or examining period. This type of service in such a situation would give some piece of mind, but I agree it doesn''t help much in terms of being able to examine the stone for cut and other qualities prior to purchasing.

Kroshka

 

[Todd Gray]

Interesting, but not new... There were a few "investment" companies back in the late 70''s who were selling diamonds of "investment grade" in sealed file-a-gem type packets and the grade was guaranteed as long as the seal was not broken - which seemed kind of lame since at some point a customer is going to want to actually view the diamond and thus the seal would be broken and the guarantee would be void. There were a lot of people that got ripped by that "investment" opportunity, I wonder how this service will go over in the U.S. market. Seems ridiculous to me, but I suppose that it is an option for customers who want to pay for the GIA to verify the diamond and send it to them sealed... We''ll see.

 

[WinkHPD]

Date: 8/6/2009 5:42:54 PM
Author: Todd Gray
Interesting, but not new... There were a few ''investment'' companies back in the late 70''s who were selling diamonds of ''investment grade'' in sealed file-a-gem type packets and the grade was guaranteed as long as the seal was not broken - which seemed kind of lame since at some point a customer is going to want to actually view the diamond and thus the seal would be broken and the guarantee would be void. There were a lot of people that got ripped by that ''investment'' opportunity, I wonder how this service will go over in the U.S. market. Seems ridiculous to me, but I suppose that it is an option for customers who want to pay for the GIA to verify the diamond and send it to them sealed... We''ll see.

Like Todd, my expereance with sealed diamonds and other gems were always inspecting the diamonds and gems bought from the horrible "investment" rip-of houses of the late 70''s and first few months of the 80''s before the crash.

I would never consider purchasing such a gem without the ability to remove it from the packet. I was surprised to hear that it is being done in other parts of the world and can understand the reasons why, but honestly, I do not expect this to be a big part of our market in this country.

Wink

 

[Modified Brilliant]

This "sealing" procedure is similar to the "encapsulating" procedure used by
Professional Coin Grading Services (PCGS) since 1986, and other coin grading companies.
The case is then "sonically sealed."
It works well in the coin world. If you think diamond grading is subjective...try talking sense
with a coin grader. And they have a ridiculous amount of sequential quality grades.

I'm not yet sold on this practice for diamonds and like others here, lived through the "scams"
of sealed "investment" quality colored stone junk that flooded the marketplace in the 70's and very early 80's.
Honestly, it makes me a little nervous

www.metrojewelryappraisers.com