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If it's Jeopardy...this must be EGL!

Regular Guy

Regular Guy

Ideal_Rock
Joined
Jul 6, 2004
Messages
5,962
Cutters, experts, laymen and women, can we play a game?

Consider our 3 major labs, and take EGL...however you want to...as one or several labs.

Let's play Jeopardy!

The answer (first) is...AGS

The question is: to which lab would you send a round whose cut paramaters would earn it a Platinum zero. Relevant details with respect to color and clarity to get this right: none (OK, better than P and I1).

Now, friends, answer me this, the answer is...EGL

What's the question?

Tip...you can recall this thread:

https://www.pricescope.com/communit...omparison.149235/page-2#post-2708035#p2708035

...but you don't need to!

The clock is ticking!

Ira Z.
 
Regular Guy said:
Cutters, experts, laymen and women, can we play a game?

Consider our 3 major labs, and take EGL...however you want to...as one or several labs.

Let's play Jeopardy!

The answer (first) is...AGS

The question is: to which lab would you send a round whose cut paramaters would earn it a Platinum zero. Relevant details with respect to color and clarity to get this right: none (OK, better than P and I1).

Now, friends, answer me this, the answer is...EGL

What's the question?

Tip...you can recall this thread:

https://www.pricescope.com/communit...omparison.149235/page-2#post-2708035#p2708035

...but you don't need to!

The clock is ticking!

Ira Z.
Click to expand...

For Canadian diamonds sold to canadian consumers a great majority of stones to EGL USA.
For diamonds sold in the US maybe "Lopsy Fugs"?

I read your post and while I agree debating the Color and Clarity is not very interesting I have no idea what other universe your are talking unless it is cut.
 
EGL is very well equipped to provide top nothch diamond grading, including state of the art cut grading. The fact that they choose to be a sort of second tier operation is more a reflection of who they market their services to and not so much a reflection of the lab's ability to act in a professional way and to be highly accurate. A large part of the diamond selling industry uses EGL documents, How they use them, what the documents really mean, who may suffer from their use, and who benefits from their use all are up for dispute and conversation. It has all been covered before and nothing seems to have changed. The is no doubt that there are several viable markets for EGL documented diamonds. Pricescope is not one of those places for the most part. However, one can readily find EGL paperwork on the Internet and in retail stores all over the world. Somebody, more than a few, like what is being offered.

If EGL saw a good business oportunity in grading just like AGSL they have the ability and knowledge to do it. I don't believe they are looking for that opportunity or maybe no one is offering a good opportunity to them for such services. So, the logical situation is for them to keep their existing clientele happy. This is pretty much what every business does.

Mybe I don't understand the "Jeopardy" nature of the thread.
 
Oldminer said:
EGL is very well equipped to provide top nothch diamond grading, including state of the art cut grading. The fact that they choose to be a sort of second tier operation is more a reflection of who they market their services to and not so much a reflection of the lab's ability to act in a professional way and to be highly accurate. A large part of the diamond selling industry uses EGL documents, How they use them, what the documents really mean, who may suffer from their use, and who benefits from their use all are up for dispute and conversation. It has all been covered before and nothing seems to have changed. The is no doubt that there are several viable markets for EGL documented diamonds. Pricescope is not one of those places for the most part. However, one can readily find EGL paperwork on the Internet and in retail stores all over the world. Somebody, more than a few, like what is being offered.

If EGL saw a good business oportunity in grading just like AGSL they have the ability and knowledge to do it. I don't believe they are looking for that opportunity or maybe no one is offering a good opportunity to them for such services. So, the logical situation is for them to keep their existing clientele happy. This is pretty much what every business does.

Mybe I don't understand the "Jeopardy" nature of the thread.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that EGL-USA outsells AGSL by a factor of 10 or more both in terms of gross revenue and in the number of reports produced. Who gets to laugh at whom in this situation? (IGI outsells both of them combined). I absolutely agree that they have a well equipped lab with some highly skilled gemologists who are well aware of what they're doing. This whole situation is no accident.
 
I had initiated this thread with what I regarded to be a genuine query...but maybe Chunky has nailed it, saying: "For diamonds sold in the US maybe "Lopsy Fugs"?" Maybe EGL diamonds are cut, intentionally or, more likely not, not well, such that they wouldn't earn either a GIA excellent, or a Pricescope vetted very good....and so they go to EGL. Let's return to that in a second, but first...David...you say:

Oldminer said:
EGL is very well equipped to provide top nothch diamond grading, including state of the art cut grading. The fact that they choose to be a sort of second tier operation is more a reflection of who they market their services to and not so much a reflection of the lab's ability to act in a professional way and to be highly accurate. .
Click to expand...

This is not the "end of the stick" I am holding...nor am I even adding on the intentionality, necessarily, Neil is suggesting. The point is not what EGL does with what lands at their door, nor what they could do with it. The question does not concern "EGL's point of view" at all." The "end of the stick" we're interested in is the shoppers...such that...once the diamond has left the door of the lab...what can we conclude about it. Or, what is it reasonable for us to conclude about the diamond, given the fact that it was sent to the lab at the outset.

David, you've gone on to say:

Oldminer said:
How they use them, what the documents really mean, who may suffer from their use, and who benefits from their use all are up for dispute and conversation. It has all been covered before and nothing seems to have changed.
Click to expand...

To say it's all been covered before may be true, but frankly, I do not recall a conclusion particularly. Unless, of course, Chunky has very simply reached it.

In recalling previous posts, one is incredulous to understand that EGL has not, to my knowledge, ever been associated with a set of criteria for their assigning of cut grades, despite the fact that they do assign them routinely. So, it is possible that one should understand straightforwardly and simply that the cut of a diamond sent to EGL, this one or that one, is in some way inferior to what would be sent to GIA, and certainly, to AGS.

From my review and recollection of comments made here previously, I wouldn't have on that basis come to that conclusion. Many seem to like their EGL jobby just fine. Just today, Stone commented of another EGL diamond...did they see an IS for it, not immediately concluding an IS would suck,

Personally, I spent the better part of an hour scanning through old threads looking to resurrect my more exotic theory, based on a statement from Beryl I could not find, referring to the "material" a diamond is made of, wherein I thought maybe cutters could tell certain diamonds constructed of fowl matter should be send to third tier labs. Today, I doubt the answer is so exotic.

But, do I think the pattern of "strategy" cutters use is based on their evaluation that a diamond's cut is inferior, and therefore they'll send it to EGL? I'll keep my eye's open for this, I suppose. It would be nice to find validity for the idea that diamonds aren't sent to labs arbitrarily. Right now, though, this is an idea looking for a data based confirmation, in my mind.

Best,

Ira Z.
 
I can think of at least 5 scenarios that are not related to geoprahic location:

1) For a round stone would not get at least GIA very good in cut.
2) Has significant enough symmetry or polish problems it wouldn't at least get GIA very good in either category.
3) Sent to EGL because it is near the HI / J color boundary
4) Sent to EGL because it is an antique but it doesn't satisfy GIA criteria for Old Mine Brilliant or Old European Cut so the antique dealer doesn't want a grading report with just Cushion or Round Brilliant in the outline description
5) Sent to EGL because it will get SI3 instead of I1

I'm sure there are more but those come to mind easily.
 
There are many different reasons a diamond may be sent to a certain lab.
I would bet the vast majority of stones that would get an i1 at gia are sent to softer labs for an si grade.

From what I have seen locally lab is not a reliable indicator of cut quality other than those with AGS reports will tend to be well cut diamonds that were sent there for an AGS0.
Locally I have only once seen an in stock round diamond with an AGS report that wasn't ags0 recently.

There were a ton of si stones that would likely be i1 at gia/ags with lesser reports.

Those that carried both egl/igi and gia the gia were usually triple X and higher color/clarity and more $$$.

There are many chains and jewelers who are creating their brands of h&a rounds and usually if you find AGS those will be the ones.

That is locally here ymmv
 
It’s not rocket science and it’s easy enough to see some of the boundaries that would provide incentive for someone to choose a particular service from a particular lab:

GIA pedigree sells faster and for a premium over identical specs from most other labs.

AGS pedigree sells for a premium if it has assigned the Platinum-AGS0 cut grade.

Reports from recognized brands, including EGL, EGLUSA and IGI, sell better than stones with reports from unknown labs.

Higher grades on clarity and/or color result in higher prices. Advice to ‘buy the diamond, not the paper’, is routinely ignored.

Grades below ‘very good’ on cut, symmetry and polish on a document lead to a discount. Sellers hate this. Grades below ‘good’ make a stone very difficult to sell with that particular report attached.

Higher fluorescence grades make stones more difficult to sell, especially ‘strong’ and above.

A ‘bad’ grade often is worse than no grade at all. Labs are chosen to avoid a particular grading scale or methodology as well as to get one.

It’s easy and relatively inexpensive to get paperwork from several different labs and choose the one that’s going to be ‘best’ to use as an advertisement for the stone. The others end up in the landfill.

Different people can submit the stone to the labs. If a dealer chooses a particular lab or service for whatever reason, and their client thinks it’ll bring more with different paperwork, they can change the paperwork themselves, lose the first set, and it will forever be the new brand and have the new details (until someone else decides to change it :bigsmile: )
 
denverappraiser said:
Different people can submit the stone to the labs. If a dealer chooses a particular lab or service for whatever reason, and their client thinks it’ll bring more with different paperwork, they can change the paperwork themselves, lose the first set, and it will forever be the new brand and have the new details (until someone else decides to change it :bigsmile: )
Click to expand...

Neil, what happen if the re-submit has already been submitted before by the previous dealer? I know GIA/AGS tracks the stones by their proportions, so it will be known that the stone is re-submitted? What about other labs? What happen to the re-submission if detected?
 
Stone-cold11 said:
denverappraiser said:
Different people can submit the stone to the labs. If a dealer chooses a particular lab or service for whatever reason, and their client thinks it’ll bring more with different paperwork, they can change the paperwork themselves, lose the first set, and it will forever be the new brand and have the new details (until someone else decides to change it :bigsmile: )
Click to expand...

Neil, what happen if the re-submit has already been submitted before by the previous dealer? I know GIA/AGS tracks the stones by their proportions, so it will be known that the stone is re-submitted? What about other labs? What happen to the re-submission if detected?
Click to expand...
I would fully expect the serious labs, and this would include both EGL-USA and EGL-International, to be pretty good at this. Any more it's not really all that difficult and it saves on some embarassment for the lab when they call the same stone something different than they called it last week. At the very least they would like to KNOW when they are contridicting themselves before some client shows up screaming about it.
 
so what do they do? Just send you the old report with a large "DUPLICATE" printed over it?
 
Stone-cold11 said:
so what do they do? Just send you the old report with a large "DUPLICATE" printed over it?
Click to expand...
They issue a new report with no clue at all that they've seen the stone before. The new client pays full price. It makes no difference if they've already seen the stone a dozen times before. Clients are NEVER told if, when, or on behalf of whom a stone may have been previously examined.


It is possible to get a duplicate report from most of them to replace a document that's been lost or destroyed, and it will be marked as such on the report. The difference is that this service doesn't require a new inspection of the stone. The details of how to do it and what it costs will vary from lab to lab but I'm sure they'll all be happy to discuss it with any prospective client who is in need of one.
 
OIC, so the tracking of the stone is just to prevent themselves from contradicting a previous grading.
 
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