What is the difference between gia and igi

EGL is also the first company known to mention SI3 clarity rating in their certificates but has faced several lawsuits for over grading diamonds. EGL is also an active for-profit organization creating possible loopholes to inconsistent certifications. Just as the EGL, this is a for-profit organization and is a household name in Europe. It is also acknowledged in the United States but not as popular as the US-based diamond laboratories. Apart from grading natural stones, IGI also grades lab-grown diamonds on a commercial scale.

Even with its prominence, IGI certifications may still be off by two or three grades. That being said, I highly recommend you avoid EGL. You may pay a hefty bunch, especially if the stone was graded a few points higher. You need to make sure the certificate corresponds to the diamond you purchased. One simple way to do this is by checking if the stone is laser-printed a serial number on the girdle. The serial number should match the certificate.

Professional thieves tend to polish the serial number and replace it with different stones. A professional appraiser should most likely be a GG graduate gemologist who has all the necessary equipment for evaluation. Look out for things like inclusions and how they are plotted. They are one of the few aspects hard to manipulate in a diamond. It is done in a loose diamond, but will be used even after setting has been added.

A diamond appraisal designates a monetary value to a stone. Thus, our in house gemologists inspect all diamonds to confirm diamond quality before shipping and are at hand for immediate consultations regarding diamond characteristics. Check the tables below to better understand the grading variations between the labs:. Some of our replies sent by email may be filtered as spam or blocked entirely. Hoveniersstraat 2,B Antwerp, Belgium. Facebook Instagram. They were within 1 color grade of each other in all but 3 cases.

IGI was stricter in 12 cases and looser in 7 cases, suggesting a slight bias in favor of stricter color grading at IGI. However, we do not have enough data to probe this bias further; it may be an artifact of small sample size or there might be real differences due to other factors such as grading site e. IGI Antwerp vs. IGI also tends to issue more certificates for higher clarity grades than the industry average.

This study is subject to a number of limitations. First, it suffers from selection bias. Dealers and jewelers choose the grading lab that will maximize their revenue, so other diamonds that are sent to GIA first and then graded by IGI may be qualitatively different. The small sample size limits the analysis to descriptive statistics. Finally, there may be other confounding variables that were not considered e. All diamond grades can be independently verified from the diamond certificates.

Summarizing the results:. Taking the results at face value, IGI potentially represents a good value opportunity. Table 1.