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| GIA AGS Ideal Report |
Now, some history... Not too long ago, there are still debates which lab is the best, and some even say IGI is not as credible as GIA (including me, when I started writing based on my own reading off the Internet). Then, down the road, my perspective started to change as I understand further that diamond grading is entirely subjective, depending on the trained diamond grader. There can always be slight discrepancies between different labs, and some time ago, there was one company called High Performance Diamonds managed by Wink Jones. He tried to bring more transparency by grading the same diamond with 3 different labs - AGS, GIA, and GCAL. Some of you may not have heard about GCAL, it is one of the labs in USA, and personally, I am quite fond of their report format. You can find more about them here.
For High Performance Diamonds collection, one may have a chance to see something like a D colour diamond graded by one lab may be graded as an E colour by another lab, and such one grade different scenario happened before with GIA being the D colour, while GCAL being the E colour. Do take note that the colours are just a sample comparison here to show the slight grade differences between different labs, it can be either COLOUR or CLARITY. However, I remember clearly that in this case, GCAL has a lower grade than GIA. Does this mean GIA is more lenient? I would not say so, and I can gladly accept that as D colour because GIA is still the de facto standard, and it will stay the way for many years to come from what I can see. What Wink Jones was doing that time was probably trying to show more transparency about the diamonds under his collection and try to make a statement that slight discrepancies do exist, and it can be either way - either graded higher/lower by GIA, or another other lab. I can't really remember which their selling price is based on whose grade though, as different grade has different pricing. Anyway, it was indeed a good deed by him, but unfortunately, the diamond collection that he was selling, called Crafted by Infinity, has ceased to exist, due to some internal issue. Wink Jones has since moved on and working for another diamond company. All the best to him.
Alright, now we come back to 2023.
So, usually, for grading, I will always advise people to just follow the grading report accordingly, as the discrepancies between different labs do appear from time-to-time. There are still other factors to consider other than grading report, such as the overall cut quality (H&A image) and proportions. If you give me 2 diamonds with similar 4Cs to choose from - a poorly cut 3EX GIA diamond and a high precision ideal IGI diamond with excellent polish and symmetry, I will take the latter any time of the day. However, if you are still skeptical and want a very well-cut lab diamond with the de facto lab standard - GIA, then thanks to Brian Gavin Diamonds, now you have a choice.
For someone that has been looking at the changing scenery as a hobbyist, this merger news is indeed refreshing. It is interesting to see how things will change with this new merger. For more info, I recommend you to read further on these 2 articles from AGS and GIA respectively:
https://www.americangemsociety.org/agslab/
https://www.gia.edu/ags-ideal-report
Till next time, take care!
