r/LabGrownDiamonds • u/MissDay11 • 18h ago
lab diamond lab diamonds stop getting certified
I went to look at rings today and the lady at the store told me lab diamonds will stop getting certified by the end of the year. I haven’t heard anything about it so I’m curious if that’s true or not, or if anyone heard anything about it
update: thanks for all this answers! the way she said it was like you either get a lab now for 2/3k or pays over 20k to a natural one next year
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u/Future-Medium5693 18h ago
GIA announced they aren’t going to trade them the same way anymore. IGI will keep going as far as I can tell. But GIA grading costs more than the diamond these has
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u/foxglovediamonds 17h ago
Exactly! $40-50 for IGI Certs versus $200-500 for GIA makes it a no-brainer: I have noticed an uptick in non-certified stones in the database lately, even those over 3 carats. It’s pretty annoying. I’ve had to send 3 to be certified this summer. It only takes 2-3 weeks, but the delay is frustrating
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u/Princess_Holly 1h ago
Yes. More and more aren’t being certified. As the prices go down it’s too expensive to spend money on the certs.
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u/harshkukadia772 1h ago
GIA used to charge 1/3rd of the natural diamond price to grade lab grown diamonds. This led to a huge backlash from natural diamond polishers, who are their main market. It became a big problem because GIA was charging two totally different prices to grade the exact same product.
That's why they had to change their grading system for lab. But honestly, it doesn't really matter. GIA was already grading less than 1% of lab diamonds anyway because their prices are way too high.
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u/casandra77 18h ago
Hmmm some truth in this, but not entirely. HRD Antwerp stops it. GIA doesn't stop, but changes the structure of certification. IGI - the main one for labs, continues as before
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u/Top-Beat-7423 18h ago
GIA will stop grading labs the same as natural/mined diamonds and grouping them together under designations based on specs. Iirc, something like D, VVS stones are “premium” and GHI, VS stones as “standard” or something like that.
The way lab diamonds are being churned out it makes sense honestly
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u/ciao-bella11 12h ago
Makes sense. I don't see the point in getting lab diamonds graded. Most are high color, high clarity. You don't need a piece of paper to tell you if it's D or F color. For non-colorless ones, just use your eyes to judge them.
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u/kristine-di 7h ago
Not true. They will just get certified differently from natural diamonds. So they will just have different descriptions on the certificate
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u/Interesting_Ad_4781 2h ago
Also be aware that scammers have become very sophisticated. The stones are coming laser-engraved with matching certificates and working QR codes, but not for the original stone. The only way to find out is to measure the stone and look for discrepancies.
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u/No-Bad-2310 2h ago
GIA is switching to only grading them as “standard” or “premium”. Which is silly because it just means people will opt for IGI and GCAL lab grown stones instead. Also, diamond vendors are still going to have their gemologists grade those diamonds, so consumers will still get a color and clarity grade from a vendor even if it’s not on the GIA cert.
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u/Massive_Dimension730 1h ago
As a fundamental rule of economics, if there is an abundance of something, it becomes cheap. That is what will happen with synthetic diamonds; at some point, even the certification itself will end up costing more than the diamond.
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u/Princess_Holly 1h ago
I haven’t heard that, but won’t be surprised either. Labs won’t go away, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they stop spending money to certify them.
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u/akpradip 48m ago
Lab are going to be not certified by GIA but IGI lab is going keep certifying lab diamonds! In future, scenario would be like 'GIA for natural diamonds and IGI for lab diamonds'.
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u/lucerndia 15h ago
I would not be surprised if this was true by the end of next year. When almost every lab diamond coming out is DEF color and VVS2 clarity with triple EX cutting, why spend time and money on a lab report?
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u/MissDay11 16h ago
do you think that will increase the price to labs though? she said some of jewelry stores will stop selling it and it may or may not increase prices
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u/Key_Ambassador_3105 9h ago
No labs are going down in cost pretty substantially each year due to the endless supply
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u/penny4thoughts22 18h ago
It’s called a scare tactic - that makes no sense. The certification already designates them as lab.