Certifications vs. Appraisals

As a rule, appraisals are made by people, often the salespersons, without special training. Therefore the accuracy of appraisals depends only on the personal experience of the person who appraises. If you read the fine print, almost all appraisals comprise legal disclaimers protecting the appraiser from legal recourse if the appraisal is incorrect. Disclaimers usually state that the appraisal doesn`t guarantee quality. Too low or too high prices often appear to be a matter of false appraisal. Discrepancy may come up to two, three or even more grades, when the appraised diamond is examined by G.I.A. Therefore, any appraisal cannot be as exact as a certified diamond quality report made by an independent gemological laboratory.

Gemological laboratories which perform the evaluation and certification may release certified diamond reports with some variations in the quality grades. It is very important to realize that the accuracy of grading is not always concordant between gemological laboratories. Although the grading of diamonds are performed by highly qualified Graduate Gemologists, it is natural that they use their individual subjective experience to determine an accurate diamond grade. In consequence of individual judgments of different gemologists, there is a likelihood of the variations in assigning quality grades. These variations occur when diamonds appear to be on the line between two grades. So, as a rule, diamonds vary only in one grade by the gemological laboratories.