GIA, IGI and GCAL Sample Certificates

On February 15, 1931, a former retail jeweler named Robert M. Shipley and his wife, Beatrice, cashed in their savings to establish the Gemological Institute of America.

When most jewelers knew little about the gems they traded, Robert Shipley decided to professionalize the industry through education, research, and gemological instrumentation. The Institute offered mimeographed mail-order courses and provided gem-testing services using borrowed microscopes and other equipment.

From these modest beginnings, GIA has become an institution with more than 200,000 graduates from 13 schools in 10 countries, a prestigious laboratory  grading the world’s most important diamonds, the leading gemological research center, and the author the 4Cs and the International Diamond Grading System – the worldwide standard for evaluating diamond quality.

In a research by Rapaport, the diamond industry price-list publisher, a diamond was sent to different laboratories to test for accuracy in grading. The IGI lab was found second to the GIA in its accuracy, but unlike the GIA who will not asign a specific Color and Clarity grades to Lab-grown man-made diamonds, the IGI grades our diamonds fully and with great accuracy. View the article here.

Numined Diamonds is proud to offer our diamonds with a complimentary IGI report (GIA report is available upon request).

Driven by the goal of providing an independent, honest and fair assessment of the quality of diamonds, Don and his wife, Pamela, established GCAL in 2001. Gem Certification & Assurance Lab is headquartered in the diamond district in New York City and is still proud to offer premium Guaranteed Grading Certificates, along with exclusive services such as Diamond Profile® Light Analysis and innovative technologies such as Gemprint.

Don’s viewpoint was that labs could be 99-100% accurate if they took the time to do it right. The idea of ‘doing it right,’ meaning grading diamonds accurately and consistently, motivated Don to introduce the first Guaranteed Diamond Grading Certificate in 1982. Although guaranteed grading was unheard of at the time, he believed that as an ‘expert’ he was responsible and accountable for his work.