GIA Diamonds – Page 2 – The Diamond Certification Laboratory of Australia (DCLA)

GIA Launches Diamond Origin Service

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has begun accepting submissions for a new service providing consumers with source verification for diamonds.

Leading manufacturers sent the first polished diamonds to the GIA’s Source Verification Service in early July, the institute said Wednesday. GIA-graded diamonds with confirmed origin information will be available to consumers when the initial submissions are returned and as more manufacturers join the program, the organization explained.

An independent auditing firm will vet all cutters before they enter the program. The auditors will confirm the company has the ability to track a diamond from receipt of the rough through the entire manufacturing process. The GIA will evaluate all participating firms regularly to ensure they are continuing to adhere to the guidelines, it noted.

Initially, the GIA will accept only polished natural diamonds with verified source documentation, including Kimberley Process (KP) certificates and invoices from vetted manufacturers. It will add lab-grown diamonds to the service in the near future. Consumers can access the information through the GIA’s online Report Check service, it added.

“GIA’s new service provides diamond-source information to consumers as quickly as possible,” said its CEO, Susan Jacques. “The GIA Source Verification Service is ready to provide verified diamond-source information to address increasing consumer demand and government interest in transparency and traceability across the supply chain.”

Source: Diamonds.net

All GIA Reports to Be Digital by 2025

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) plans to convert all of its paper reports to digital within the next three years, beginning with its Diamond Dossier in 2023.

The digital reports, which it will link to an app, will be more secure than their paper counterparts, the GIA said Tuesday. They will be paired with a new inscription-matching service, called GIA Match iD. This feature captures a diamond’s inscription image and links the stone to its GIA report using artificial intelligence (AI).

As each report category is introduced in digital form, the printed reports will be discontinued, the GIA told Rapaport News. However, some specialty services, such as the Monograph reports and notable letters, will continue to be available in printed versions.

“Digital reports…build on our decades of innovation and move our consumer protection mission forward,” said GIA CEO Susan Jacques. “This important transformation allows GIA to offer consumers a truly modern and engaging experience while helping our industry progress toward a more sustainable future.”

Starting in January 2023, the new Diamond Dossier service will offer a fully digital report, including the 4Cs; the app, which enables retailers and consumers to view, save and share information for their diamonds; and the Match iD instrument.

The elimination of GIA paper reports will save 20 tons of paper and 18.5 tons of plastic each year, the GIA said. It will also reduce transportation-related carbon emissions, the institute added.

Source: Diamonds.net

Belgian Lab Detects Diamond with Fake Inscription

*The diamond bearing the fake GIA inscription.*

HRD Antwerp recently discovered a fake inscription on a polished diamond the lab had received for grading.

The 1.50-carat stone had a Gemological Institute of America (GIA) laser inscription corresponding to a natural grading report, HRD said Monday. The accompanying report listed the diamond as natural, with no color treatments. The stone was further identified as type IIa, meaning it contained virtually no elements other than carbon. However, during testing, the Antwerp lab found that the diamond had undergone High Pressure-High Temperature (HPHT) color treatment.

Although the diamond’s carat weight, color and cut precisely matched the GIA report, HRD noticed inconsistencies with clarity characteristics that were quite similar to those listed in the certification and could easily be mistaken during a standard loupe inspection, it explained.

“Detailed microscopic investigation by an experienced grader revealed that this was not the same diamond described in the report,” HRD said. “The clarity characteristics did not completely overlap. Since these characteristics are a unique fingerprint of the diamond, the inscription was conclusively identified as false. The diamond at hand had been intentionally inscribed with a fake laser inscription to deceive the customer.”

Correction: The story has been updated to clarify what was disclosed in the report and the findings of HRD.

Source: diamonds.net

GIA Sees Spike in Synthetics Fraud

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has seen a rise in submissions of lab-grown diamonds with counterfeit inscriptions that make the stones appear natural.

Clients using the GIA’s update or verification services are increasingly sending in goods that prove to be synthetic, the organization said Monday. These stones have falsified girdle engravings that reference a genuine natural-diamond report number, while most have almost identical measurements and weights to the natural diamonds they mimic.

In a recent case, someone submitted a 3.075-carat, H-color, VVS2-clarity, triple-Ex, lab-grown diamond to GIA Antwerp for an update. The stone carried a report for a 3.078-carat, G-color, internally flawless, triple-Ex natural diamond. The synthetic stone’s real-life dimensions were within hundredths of millimeters of the measurements in the natural-diamond report, the GIA noted.

“This unfortunate situation demonstrates why it is important, especially in any transaction where the buyer does not have a trusted relationship with the seller, to have the diamond-grading report updated before completing a purchase,” said Tom Moses, the GIA’s executive vice president and chief laboratory and research officer.

The GIA blotted out the counterfeit inscription and inscribed a report number for a new certificate that it issued, adding the term “laboratory-grown” on the girdle, as is its practice.

In February, the institute reported that it had received a number of lab-grown or treated stones carrying natural reports and fake inscriptions.

Source: Diamonds.net

GIA Recalls Diamonds over Treatment Query

Color grading at the GIA Carlsbad diamond grading lab.

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has asked customers to return a number of colored diamonds for reassessment, suspecting that a treatment might have gone under the radar.

The organization will reevaluate certain diamonds with “green or greenish” in the color grade, a spokesperson told Rapaport News last week. The recall applies to reports it issued between January and June 2020. The GIA declined to reveal how many stones were affected or to provide their report numbers.

“Recent research and investigation into potential treatment methods caused us to request the return of the subject diamonds for further analysis,” the spokesperson said.

The institute informed customers about the issue around six weeks ago, and is in the process of collecting and reassessing the diamonds. Some stones could get an “undetermined” ruling, while others may require further testing, the spokesperson explained. Many diamonds had already come back with their natural-color statuses confirmed, market sources said. The GIA bases its conclusions on the “state of knowledge and criteria in place at the date of examination,” it added.

Sources estimated that the number of reports under review was close to 100 and could be much higher. The GIA did not specify the nature of the possible treatment. The case is unrelated to the recent discovery of a treated fancy-color diamond on which the institute reported in the latest edition of its academic journal, Gems & Gemology.

“GIA has been investigating the cause of color in diamonds and other gem materials for nearly 70 years,” the spokesperson continued. “Among GIA’s earliest area of research was determining origin of color of green diamonds, which remains even today one of the most difficult areas of gemology. The research process is dynamic, and we recently discovered new information that may provide new insights about the origin of color of the group of diamonds that we have requested to be returned for review.”

The GIA is already dealing with a wider grading backlog following a rebound in market activity in recent months. The organization is operating with as much capacity as local Covid-19 rules allow, using weekends, second shifts and overtime, the spokesperson said.

Source: Diamonds.net

Diamonds with Fake Inscriptions Turn Up at GIA

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has recently received “a number of” lab-grown or treated stones carrying natural-diamond reports and fake inscriptions, the organization warned.

Clients submitted the stones for updated reports or verification services, but the grading documents that came with the goods did not match the stones, the GIA explained Tuesday. The weights and grading scores of the lab-grown and treated diamonds were close but not identical to the original stones that appeared on the reports, and they all featured the corresponding natural-diamond report numbers in the form of counterfeit girdle inscriptions.

In one example, a stone submitted was a 1.51212-carat, D-color, VVS2-clarity, type IIa, lab-grown diamond with a cut grade of “very good.” However, the accompanying report — for which the client was seeking an update — was for a 1.50362-carat, VVS2, E, type I natural diamond with “excellent” cut.

In line with its policy, the GIA overwrote all the fraudulent inscriptions with X’s to obscure them, it added. The organization also issued new reports with the accurate details, and engraved the correct report number onto the girdle, and, where relevant, the phrase “laboratory-grown.” In these cases, it also considers informing the client that submitted the stone, law enforcement, and the public, the GIA noted.

Last month, the institute revealed that it had spotted three synthetic moissanites that clients had submitted with forged girdle inscriptions that disguised them as natural diamonds. The cases at its Johannesburg laboratory were the first times the GIA had discovered fake inscriptions on diamond simulants.

Source: Diamonds.net

GIA Spots Rare Inscription Fraud in Simulant

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has uncovered three synthetic moissanites with forged inscriptions that fraudsters had used to misrepresent them as natural diamonds.

The cases at the Johannesburg laboratory marked the first times the GIA had discovered fake girdle inscriptions on diamond simulants, it said in a recent article in its academic journal, Gems & Gemology.

The lab initially received a round brilliant, 1.02-carat stone for a diamond-grading report. The report number on the girdle was for an E-color natural diamond with the same weight that was graded in 2019, but the dimensions were different because moissanite has lower specific gravity, meaning that it weighs less relative to its volume.

Standard testing showed the stone was not a diamond, while subsequent spectroscopic and gemological analysis proved it was synthetic moissanite, GIA researchers wrote in the fall 2020 edition of Gems & Gemology, which it released last week.

“The possibility exists that a consumer could purchase this simulant thinking it was a natural diamond, especially with a deliberately misleading inscription,” wrote Sicebiso Hlatshwayo, a supervisor of diamond grading at the GIA in Johannesburg, and Sally Eaton-Magaña, senior manager of diamond identification at the GIA in Carlsbad, California.

Since writing the article about the first stone, the same lab in South Africa received and identified two more synthetic moissanites with fraudulent inscriptions, the GIA added in a note.

In addition to the size discrepancy, the first stone’s clarity was equivalent to VVS2 (the GIA doesn’t usually give moissanite a grade of this type), whereas the diamond it was impersonating was VVS1. The inscription’s font was also distinctly different from the GIA’s standard one. The GIA obscured the fraudulent inscription, in line with its usual practice.

People sometimes mistake synthetic moissanite for diamond because some of their properties are similar, such as their hardness and thermal conductivity, the gemologists explained. The latter feature is often a method of distinguishing diamonds from simulant, but it can fail if the stone is moissanite.

However, the stone showed “double refraction” — a feature of moissanite, absent in diamonds, that gives it more brilliance.

Another key difference between the materials is dispersion, the GIA pointed out. Moissanite has higher dispersion, meaning light that enters the stone is refracted more. The eye, therefore, sees a more distinct range of colors, giving it more “fire” than diamonds.

Source: Diamonds.net

GIA to Cut Back Antwerp Business

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) will scale back its Antwerp operations from January, but has decided not to shut the laboratory entirely.

“Today, we notified clients of the GIA laboratory in Antwerp that, as of January, the laboratory will offer consolidated services with reduced staff,” a spokesperson told Rapaport News Monday. It will continue to provide client consultations, rough-diamond analysis for the GIA Diamond Origin Report, and some follow-up services and inscriptions for D-to-Z diamonds up to 3.99 carats, he added.

In August, the GIA revealed preliminary plans to close or significantly trim its laboratory and offices in the Belgian city, citing market conditions and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Source: Diamonds.net

GIA Unveils New Lab-Grown Reports

The new GIA lab-grown diamond reports. (GIA)

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has launched its new grading reports for lab-grown diamonds, offering an updated look and format.

The new documents, branded “LGDR by GIA,” come in digital-only form and use specific color and clarity scores rather than the descriptive terms and ranges that appeared in its previous reports, the organization said Tuesday.

“The evolution of GIA’s reports for laboratory-grown diamonds is fully aligned with our mission to protect all consumers,” said Susan Jacques, GIA president and CEO. “Everyone who purchases gemstone jewelry — whether natural or laboratory-grown — expects and deserves the information, confidence and protection that come with a GIA report.”

The offering includes two different Laboratory-Grown Diamond Reports for colorless synthetic diamonds — a standard report and a dossier — and two for colored diamonds: one with plot diagrams and one without.

Notably, the GIA avoids calling the documents “grading reports” — a term it reserves for natural diamonds. Earlier this week, the World Jewellery Confederation (CIBJO) recommended that laboratories use that term only for natural stones and instead call synthetics reports “Laboratory-Grown Diamond Product Specifications,” arguing that the concept of grading implies rarity.

“The color and clarity specifications for laboratory-grown diamonds are described on the same scale as GIA grading reports for natural diamonds, but that does not correlate to nature’s continuum of rarity,” the GIA noted.

The reports state that a stone was created by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) or High Pressure-High Temperature (HPHT) and that it may include post-growth treatments to change the color. Each report also comes with a QR code linking to a custom page on GIA’s website with information about lab-grown diamonds.

Each stone will also receive a laser inscription with the report number and the words “laboratory-grown,” unless another acceptable term already appears on the girdle.

Source: Diamonds.net

GIA Considers Shutting Antwerp Lab

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) plans to close or heavily scale back its Antwerp operations following a review of its business in the Belgian city.

“Based on global and local market conditions and activity, and the impact of the global pandemic, the GIA conducted an evaluation of the long-term viability of GIA Belgium,” a spokesperson for the organization told Rapaport News on Friday. “As a result of that evaluation, we have the intention to close or significantly reduce the GIA laboratory and offices in Antwerp, which will likely result in a reduction in staff.”

The GIA invested in its Antwerp business as recently as 2018, expanding the office’s research and traceability services and adding diamond grading to its capabilities — though it also shuttered its Dubai branch the same year.

The decision about the “closure or near-closure” in Antwerp is not final, the GIA noted, and the group is consulting with staff members in Belgium.

Around 50 people could lose their jobs if the move goes through, according to Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws.

Belgium’s diamond industry has struggled in recent years amid a shift in manufacturing work to India and a reduction in bank lending to the sector. The coronavirus has intensified the situation: The country’s polished exports for 2020’s second quarter slid 71% year on year to $813.2 million as global demand plummeted and shipping routes shut down. The GIA lab closed for almost two months during the pandemic.

The laboratory will maintain its current operations in the meantime, meaning clients will still be able to submit and pick up stones, the GIA stated.

Source: Diamonds.net