As if there weren’t enough to confuse you about buying a diamond, now many brick-and-mortar establishments in America are doing their own in-house diamond certification instead of relying on the big name labs like Gemological Institute of America (GIA) and American Gem Society (AGS). In other words, they might initially review the certification and then file it away, instead preferring to assess the gemstone with their own set of criteria.

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For example, Jeff Jaffe of Harold Jaffe Jewelers in Toledo, Ohio, told JCK Magazine, “We don’t believe in any certificates – even from the better labs. If I agree with the diamond grading document, I’ll use it. But we usually go downward – not upward – when comparing our diamond evaluations to grading reports from a lab.�

Likewise, Craig Underwood of Underwood’s Fine Jewelers in Fayetteville, Arkansas, now presents customers with his own diamond reports since he felt there were too many inconsistencies in the reports he received from various gemological labs. He explains, “We’ll give the customer a lab-issued diamond grading report if the customer specifically asks for it, but that rarely happens. Most of the time the lab-issued grading report is filed in our archives and never shown to the customer. The only report the customer receives is our Underwood Diamond Report.�

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