GIA Certificates

We have always been the leader in San Diego on quality diamond sales. We led the way with GIA certs, Ideal Cuts and now Hearts on Fire.

EGL certificates are not up to our standards anymore. Even EGL LA (who has always been the best out of all the EGL’s, but still marginal) is now to be considered a “non-cert”.

Leo Hamel & Co. will only use GIA as our certificate from this date forward. AGS may be used if we see that they are maintaining GIA and LHC standards. Only time will tell on AGS.

If we sell an EGL, or any other certified stone that is not GIA/AGS, we will buy it from the dealer and sell it to the customer based on our grading, not the certificates. This means we price it based on our own grade and not what the cert says it is. The customers must also know what we think it is and it must be noted on the sale invoice.

In order to make the true grade known, Inventory must write it on the diamond paper. They will put “LHC: SI2-H” or whatever we think the grade may be. It will also be in the description field in the inventory screen as “(LHC: SI2-H).” Make sure to put this in parenthesis and exactly as shown.

If we memo in a stone and it needs to be sold before it can get a GIA cert, it must be graded by at least 3 qualified people (such as our trained Inv. Buyer, Dano, Thom Underwood, Gary or Leo). We must sell it as the grade we are sure it is and what GIA would most likely cert it as.

All ½ ct. and larger diamonds that have a Rapp cost of $3,000 per ct. are to be certified. Imperfects would not have a cert unless it is a big stone and we are not sure of the color. If under ½ ct. and we feel it is a very high color or clarity we might cert with GIA, but not always. Judgement must be used.

Very poor cut stones would often not need a cert. For example, if the cut is off and we feel that the cert will read fair – fair or fair – poor or if it reads 65% depth on rounds, then we would not want to cert the stone.

The point is, if a cert is going to make the stone look bad, why get one.

If you are a salesperson and you are searching for a stone for a customer, make sure to ask for a GIA stone. If you don’t ask for this and get an EGL stone in, then we have to re-grade it, it will cost more and it most likely won’t end up being the grade we paid for and the grade you are looking for.