GIA Certification worth it for future resale???

[dageman]

Ok I know I asked this question before, but I''m still stuggling trying to decide what to do.

I''ve purchased an 1.02ct E VS2 very good cut EC. This diamond has been certified by GemScan (a large player in the diamond cert business in Toronto) and their certs usually match up exactly with GIA. Its just that the GemScan cert doesnt have nearly as much detail as a GIA cert.

So either way this diamond is going into the setting and onto her finger (because I really love this diamond!), but in terms of future resale/trade up etc. is it worth it to send the diamond to GIA (at a cost of $250 to me) and get the cert? Will the GIA cert help me in the future if she wants to upgrade? I have to choose relatively soon because its going to be mounted in a few weeks, so I''d rather have them send it away now and have it back certed in time for mounting.

Basically the GIA cert will be more of a "peace of mind" thing.

What do you all think?

 

[gulliverseyes]

If you have a return policy on the diamond, you could shop it around to the local dealers and see if they can sell you on one that looks better to you at around the same cost. I''m no expert, but the piece of paper means nothing if you like what you have. If you were to sell it, you could get the cert at that point in time.

 

[diagem]

Date: 12/29/2007 1:53:31 PM
Author: gulliverseyes
If you have a return policy on the diamond, you could shop it around to the local dealers and see if they can sell you on one that looks better to you at around the same cost. I''m no expert, but the piece of paper means nothing if you like what you have. If you were to sell it, you could get the cert at that point in time.

True...

My question is..., why is your cost $250 fot a GIA report on a one carat Diamond?

 

[Jonathan the Jeweler]

If you want to have this diamond receive a GIA report than now is the time to do it, as they will not grade a set diamond. It sounds as if you really would feel better having a GIA graded stone so the cost would be justifiable to you. GIA stones do sell for a slight premium in general, so the expense might be recouped later. It is unlikely that the dealer you bought the stone from would pay a premium in case you trade-up, and selling the diamond any other way would likely give you a loss. So in short only get the GIA report if it truly would give you peace of mind, as the cert your diamond comes with sounds good enough for most purposes.

 

[risingsun]

I have a local jeweler who will take high qualilty diamonds in trade for upgrades. He will pay a premium, depending on the quality of the stone, if it has an AGS or GIA grading report. If you think you may be upgrading, you might consider sending it to be graded. My first e-ring was not graded. I assumed I could always upgrade through my orginal vendor. I relocated, found PS and decided I wanted to go with a different vendor...oops on my original upgrade privileges. For an e-ring, I would want both a grading report [AGS or GIA] and the findings of an independent appraiser.

 

[dageman]

Thanks for the opinions everyone... there are good arguments for both sides.

In terms of why I have to pay $250... well... the jeweler said to me its like $100 or something that GIA charges, plus I am in Canada, so it has to be mailed in a certain fashion with insurance blah blah... plus I am sure the jeweller plans to make a few bucks for his time. ALSO... he said that he uses GemScan exclusively for all certing of diamonds that do not have GIA or AGS certs when he buys them... and he feels the GemScan cert is of a consistent and high enough quality that he will not cover the costs for the GIA cert if the stone already has a GemScan cert

Maybe I'll try to haggle him into splitting it with me... I mean... I'm buying a $10,000 ring off this guy!!!

 

[denverappraiser]

If you’re planning on upgrading, look into the details of the upgrade policy at the jeweler where you’re shopping. This will almost certainly be your best resale outlet. Reselling diamonds as an individual and getting top dollar is quite difficult no matter what your paperwork is.

Diamonds are currently easier to sell to other consumers with GIA paperwork to be sure and you get less argument from dealers over grading when you try to sell to them but I’m not sure I would recommend you need it at this point unless you’re trying to do this as a business venture, which is a really bad idea. This is actually a relatively recent phenomena. 20 years ago no one new what a ‘certificate’ was and 20 years from now it may be completely different again. The world is like that. If the need comes to resell sometime in the future and it turns out that GIA grading will help you sell it you can always take it out of the setting and send it in to GIA for grading if you think it’ll help.

GIA reports on Emerald cuts don't contain a whole lot. What do they have that's missing on a report from Gemscan?

Neil Beaty
GG(GIA) ICGA(AGS) NAJA
Professional Appraisals in Denver

 

[dageman]

GemScan only contains cut grade, color, clarity, and dimensions. (i suppose from that you can figure out depth)

As such it would be missing the following: table, girdle, polish, symmetry, crown angles and the little picture that shows where the inclusions are.

So yeah... I guess I can always get it certed IF I decide to resell or trade-in... and if I trade in to the same guy then he obviously doesnt care much for GIA certs... maybe I''ll just leave it for now... I suppose there is always the possibility that she will love the ring and never want to upgrade....

yeah right! hahaha

 

[oldminer]

"I''ve purchased an 1.02ct E VS2 very good cut EC. "
What are the cut standards in use for Emerald cut by Gem Scan? Do they publish them and/or do they explain them on their reports?


"This diamond has been certified by GemScan (a large player in the diamond cert business in Toronto) and their certs usually match up exactly with GIA. Its just that the GemScan cert doesnt have nearly as much detail as a GIA cert."
Something is wrong here, particularly the blue highlighted text. Either some convincing salesperson has given you a good pitch or you are promoting Gem Scan for some reason which you haven''t explained. How can you say "certs usually" in the same sentence say "match up exactly"? What you are clearly saying is that that Gem Scan certs, in your opinion or in the opinion of someone you have trusted, are the usually, but not in every case the grading equivalent of GIA. GIA grading is not 100% ironclad and no lab seeking to match the accuracy of GIA can possibly do a 100% job at matchiong GIA. The liklihood is that VERY few labs can perform at the level of consistency of GIA and that is not such a big deal since what most ordinary consumers want is an honest, knowledgeable opinion from a reputable lab which is attempting to give GIA type results.

The large size of a lab is not proof of its output quality. One might initially think success equals large equals accurate, but many of us know better.

If you want to buy a diamond, a GIA report is desireable today. Twenty years from now, when you might want to sell your diamond a twenty year old report will be antiquated, out of date, and not state of the art. When you want to sell your diamond it will need a current report which will cover any dmage of the past use the stone has lived with since its last report.
Don''t look so far forward, but do the best job now to buy right and smart.

 

[dageman]

Thanks David, you post makes a lot of sense.

I wasn''t clear when I said "most of the time... exactly"... I think what I meant was that he showed me a number of stones (2 ECs, 3-4 rounds) for which he had both GemScan and GIA certs and they matched up exactly on color, clarity, and cut grade. What he did tell me was that most of the time they are exactly the same (i.e. on color, clarity and cut grade) ... but sometimes they differ by one level on clarity (i.e. VS1 or VS2) while color and cut grade are the same. So most of the time they are exactly the same for all 3, sometimes they differ on one of the 3 aforementioned criteria.

I could not find any info on how Gemscan grades their ECs... maybe I will drop in or give them a call and see if I can figure anything out.