Certification Of Diamond
The Most Popular Diamond Grading Labs in the World are GIA, IGI, AGS and EGL
GIA, the Gemological Institute of America, is the leading gemological laboratory in the world. It is the industry’s most trusted and most widely used service. Headquartered in Carlsbad, California, GIA has offices in many cities around the world, employing more than 1400 scientists, educators and certified diamond graders.
AGS stands for American Gemological Society and it is also a US based laboratory (with main offices in Las Vegas). The AGS laboratory is renowned for its scientific approach and research in diamond cut grading. Instead of using an alphabetical rating system, AGS uses a scale of 0-10 for rating a diamond’s characteristics, with 0 as the best and 10 as the worst.
IGI is the International Gemological Institute that is based in Antwerp, Belgium. After GIA, they are actually the 2nd most well-known lab in the world. IGI actually grades a significant amount of polished diamonds in the market and they are prevalent in Asian countries. IGI also grades synthetic diamonds on a commercial scale.
EGL is an abbreviation for European Gemological Laboratory. It is a European founded grading agency and has a big global presence – with offices in London, Paris, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Johannesburg, among others. EGL is known for pioneering diamond grading techniques for stones weighing less than a carat and has a large market share in Europe.