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Back from my diamond grading class....

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IrishEyes

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Whew!!! Am I tired! I just got back from a week long diamond grading class with the GIA. I learned so much, I never knew there was so much to grading those things!! I spent the week looking at many many diamonds, please don''t be jealous!
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I got to color grade, clarity grade, plot inclusions (that is HARD!!!) and measure angles and such. I don''t know how people do that for a living, my eyes were killing me at the end of each day!! That plotting is NOT as easy as it looks! Anyway, just wanted to let the rest of the diamond freaks know how my week went!
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Hope you all had a great week! I missed my daily dose of PS, but I''m baaaaaaaaack.........
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How interesting! When you''re rested you must tell us more about it. Was there a final examination? How far off from the "right answers" could you be and still pass?

questions, questions....
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widget
 
Good for you!!!! I bet it was a very tough week, and would love to hear more about it when you have rested as widget mentioned.
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Oh I am soo jealous....please dish! I cant even think about any of that until the GRE''s are over.
 
Oh, that sounds sooo interesting!!

More details please!!
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CONGRATS IrishEyes!!!!

Those are tough classes!!!!
 
Cool beans!
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Date: 8/6/2005 7:58:41 PM
Author: Matatora
Oh I am soo jealous....please dish! I cant even think about any of that until the GRE''s are over.
Ugh I still have nightmares and panic attacks just remembering my GREs.
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Thanks for the support guys!!!
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well in terms of a final, on friday, the last day, we had to correctly grade two stones. we were allowed to be off by 1 on everything - i.e. - if you put down SI2 and it was SI1 or I1, you''d be ok, but if you put SI2 and it was a VS2, you would lose 10 pts. Same with color grade, crown and pavillion angles, table percentage, etc. I was good at some things ( color, clarity, crown angle, pavillion angle, table percentage) and crappy at others ( average girdle width, plotting)

I could not get the girdle width right. I would hold the diamond table to culet and spin the stone around under the scope at anywhere from 10 -60x and observe the girdle. we had a manual that had a guide in there on judging girdle thickness, but it always seemed way thicker to me. So what was ''extremely thick'' or ''thick'' to me was actually only ''sl. thick'' or ''med.'' according to the report. you would think it would be so easy to identify it, but I had a hard time..

Plotting. OMG. I hated it!! You have to hold the stone in your non-dominant hand (left for me) under the scope. keep your eyes in the eyepieces in the scope and look at the stone, twisting and turning it in a certain fashion (they tought us to use the "wedge technique, basically dividing the stone into eight wedges). Then you identify your first inclusion, decide what it is you are looking at (feather, crystal, chip, natural, etc.) and without moving the stone or your eyes too far from the scope, plot the characteristic on the diagram ( appropriate pic - crown or pavillion) with the correct colored pen (usually red or green). You can only plot feathers on the diagram of the surface it is breaking, for example, you see a feather reaching the surface of the crown. so you plot it there, as you see it. even if you tip the stone over and SEE it on the pavillion side, if it doesn''t break the surface of the pavillion, you don''t plot it. This was hard for me because I would see things on certain sides, but I couldn''t plot because they didn''t touch the surface. I had a hard time with crystals too, because alot of times we had "reflectors" or a tiny crystal at the bottom of the stone that reflected all around the diamond. So what looks like hundreds of tiny crystals was actually only one. You have to establish whereabouts that one crystal is, then plot it, ignoring the others. in the comments section of the report, you would notate that the stone has reflector crystals.

There was so much more, but I can''t remember right now. I just had a really hard time with plotting! I''m not an artsy type to begin with, I can''t even draw a stick figure and they are asking me to draw crystals and feather!! LOL, yea right!!!!
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all in all, it was a blast! I met a wonderful girl from a town I used to live in and her and I have been exchanging emails. I met some great people in the industry (and some shady people also....) and really learned alot! Plus I got to hang out in my home town- CHICAGO BABY!! oh I miss my city! I hate living here in the boonies right now! But, hubby says we are going to start looking at townhomes in the chicago area this fall!! yea!!
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IrishEyes,

Sounds like you had great time. Its good that you took the Diamond Grading Extension class while everything was still
fresh in your mind. I got my Gemologist Diploma back in 1989 and would have to brush up on Diamond Grading, Gem ID, and Colored Stone Grading before I could take those 3 classes I need to get my GG. Wouldn''t have to take
the Comprehensive Final again though which is nice.

Since I don''t work in the jewelry industry it is difficult right now to justify a $1000 a pop to take each of those classes.

Let me know what the Gem ID extension class is like though. I sweated bullets to pass the 20 stone final and wouldn''t want to go through that again.

p.s. I sucked at plotting too.
 
Wow...It sounds really challenging...I think I have new respect for people with "GIA Gemologist" after their names!

Congratulations, IE!!! Well Done!!
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Now, then...tell us a little more about the "shady characters"...
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....

widget
 
Wow....congrats on finishing all of that...sounds like a migraine waiting to happen. I have figured out the loupe thing but if I Had to do that and decide what I was looking at...no chance.
 
LOL widget!!!!!
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Well, by shady characters, I mean people who introduce themselves by saying that what they WANT to do (maybe their ultimate goals or something) is what the ARE doing right now. For example, there was this guy, he was probably my age or so, maybe like 26 or 27. He was wearing a wedding ring, but after seeing how he behaved for the week, I found it hard to believe that anyone actually married him! (I know that''s mean buy hey, it''s what I think). Anyway, he introduced himself by saying he worked for a "well-known and respected" company in wholesale manufacturing in some big city. Never elobarating on the company name or where it actually was. He said he was a buyer and had many years experience in the industry and in buying. But as the week went on, it became obvious that he had no clue! At one point, they put up a picture of a ring with a radiant cut center stone. He goes (oh yeah, he was always just shouting out random phrases and then laughing like an idiot, like huhuhuhuhuhhh
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) " hey! what''s wrong with that round?! Man, what a crappy stone! Huhuhuuhuhhhuh!!" The woman sitting behind him looked like she wanted to kick him in the back with her stiletto heel! The instructor is like "um, that''s NOT a round, that''s called a radiant cut. Haven''t you seen one before?" the guy is all "oh.....yeah......"
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Then they put up a pic of a ring with pave so that we could talk about melee briefly. The same guy shouts out "oh! oh! That''s pave right? Is that pave?" SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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There was another guy who sold colored gemstones, but after getting to know him, I think he just wanted to sell them, don''t think he has an actual business or works for anyone that does.

So, those types of people! Just really annoying, immature people. People who should be more advanced for their age.
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