Buying GIA Certified Diamonds
Part of being fashion fierce is being aware of what you pay for. This is true of diamonds. Wedding season is coming up and you want to be picky about buying these precious stones because you do get what you pay for.
All diamonds are qualified and valued according to the four C’s (carats, color, clarity and cut.) There is a standard for how diamonds are graded. It is not your jeweler that sets this standard. It is also not the diamond appraiser or an insurance guy. If you took one diamond to any of these individuals they would each grade it in a different way. This is why an organization exists specifically to grade diamonds. The organization is called the GIA.
The GIA is an acronym for the Gemological Institute of America. To buy the best quality diamond with the assurance of a quality rating you need to buy one that comes with a certificate from the Gemological Institute. It will tell you everything you need to know about the diamond - what the four Cs are and where it is from.
The GIA certificate is known to all diamond experts and sellers and you should never deal with a seller that pretends it does not exist. It does set the bar and it is considered to be most accurate when it comes to valuing and grading diamonds.
Knowing about GIA certification can also tell you immediately what you should be paying for it. All you have to do is call a jeweler and describe the diamond and ask what the GIA price would be for the gem.
Let’s just say you are shopping for a diamond and you see one that you like. You might want to know how much a .75 carat; F color VS1 clarity diamond with an emerald cut might be worth. They should be able to give the exact price. This allows you to shop on the internet. You don’t even have to step a foot inside a jewelry shop.
Of course you do want to always purchase a diamond that has a good reputation and gives money back guarantees.
A GIA certified diamond is not hard to find. Almost all jewelers sell them. The best diamond dealers sell nothing but these kinds of GIA certified gems.
The thing to watch out for when you are buying diamonds is the diamond sellers that tell you that their grading system is the same as the GIA certification process. This may be true but if you need to resell that diamond at the same price you will need that GIA certificate. You might also be told that GIA certification ups the price of the diamonds but in truth the cost of sending the diamond for the certification is only about a hundred dollars. So the mark up on the price of the gem should not be that much more than that.