The Very Highest Quality Diamond Information...


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Certification
If you are buying a high priced, high quality diamond, it is worth while considering whether you should get an expert opinion. It is surprising how few people do so!
Who can provide independent expert advice?

Diamond Grading Laboratories
In the past few decades, a set of international diamond grading standards have emerged. As yet there is no single world-wide standard, but the standards applied by the GIA, Gemmological Institute of America, have influenced European laboratories. GIA terminology and standards have become almost a de facto international standard. GIA certificates are accepted almost world-wide.
CIBJO is a European organisation which has a number of affiliated national gemmological laboratories, including in Britain, the London Gem Lab. This grades to the same strict standards as the GIA. Although CIBJO lab certificates are not as universally accepted as those issued by the GIA, they provide perfectly good independent expert testing, grading and certification for diamonds and other gemstones.

Other Laboratories
There are many other laboratories throughout the world, but not all can be relied upon to provide first class, honest, and reliable grading. Indeed in most countries anybody could, and often does, set up as a gemmological grading laboratory, offering cut-price grading certificates to dealers, manufacturers, and retailers of all ethical persuasions.
Many diamond grading certificates are probably not worth the paper they are written on!

Retailer Grading
Only one generation ago, many British retail jewellers could not even tell you the weight of the diamonds in a diamond ring they were trying to sell you, some still can't!
Things have improved slightly, but many retail jewellers still cannot tell you accurately the quality of the diamonds you are expected to buy from them. If they don't know, how can you expect them to be able to advise you properly? Recently, many jewellers, particularly the large multiple retailers, have realised that they need to appear to their customers as being more expert. Many have introduced graded diamonds into their ranges, or offer grading information about diamonds from their stock. Sadly many of them use "hack" certification from unknown laboratories. Other retailers will give you an oral opinion of the grading. Because of the vast differences in grading standards between laboratories and the diamond trade, the grades you are told may be exaggerated sufficiently to double the apparent value of the diamond.
If you are offered grading information, ask who performed the grading, and what guarantees there are about the grades.

Do Chard Offer Lab Reports On All Their Diamonds?
No, we don't.
About 1980, we were one of the few jewellers who could tell you the diamond content of the rings we were offering for sale. We were in the small minority of jewellers who had attended any diamond grading courses. Because we design and manufacture our own diamond rings, we have to know about the quality of the diamonds we buy to make up into our jewellery.
For about the last ten years, we have been recording our own grade opinions on most of the more important diamonds in our stock.
From about 1995, we have been offering a small number of our better stones complete with either GIA, or more usually, London Gem Lab (GAGTL) grading certificates.
We still advise our showroom customers to examine a number of diamonds, and learn to judge for themselves how to distinguish different diamond qualities. We do this because we feel that the more our customers know, the more likely it becomes that they will buy from us because of the excellent value we offer.
We feel that the proportion of Lab graded diamonds we sell will increase sharply in the next few years, especially now that consumers can use the internet to shop around for the best deals.

When Should You Expect A Laboratory Certificate?
It's difficult to be precise, but we'll try to give you a few guidelines.
When you want a high quality diamond, of colour about H or better.
When you want a diamond of VS clarity or better.
If you are spending over £1000 on a single diamond, unless it is large in relation to its price.
Whenever you are buying a diamond which is small for its price, so that you should be expecting high quality.
If you are buying it from an unknown source.

Certificated Diamonds For Sale
We have a small list of unmounted, certificated diamonds for sale on our Unmounted Diamonds page.
Some of our diamond rings also contain graded and certified diamonds, particularly solitaire diamond rings. Please see our Rings pages.
We can, of course, also supply certificated diamonds as pendants, ear-rings, or any other class of jewellery.

D Flawless
We now offer a small selection of certificated D colour Internally Flawless diamonds.

Certified Diamonds at Best Prices We have recently started a new service to offer you the best possible price on the web for certified diamonds.

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...at the Lowest Possible Price

32 - 36 Harrowside, Blackpool, Lancashire, FY4 1RJ, England.
Telephone (44) - (0) 1253 - 343081 ; Fax 408058; E-mail:
The URL for our main page is: https://24carat.co.uk
Chard(1964) Ltd