Understanding Your Certificate: GIA, HRD & IGI

A certificate is proof, not a receipt. It’s an independent lab’s scientific record of one specific stone’s exact characteristics, produced by someone with no stake in your sale.

• GIA, the lab that set the modern 4Cs standard, most recognised name worldwide.
• HRD, out of Antwerp, known for especially rigorous cut analysis.
• IGI, the largest lab by volume, the standard for lab-grown grading.
• Your inscription matches your certificate number, and we’ll show you both, together.

Three labs, all genuinely trusted

We work with GIA, HRD and IGI because each is independently respected, not because one is a fallback for the others. Which lab graded your stone matters less than the fact that a real, independent lab did.

What’s actually printed on the certificate

Beyond the 4Cs headline numbers, a real certificate documents the stone’s precise measurements and proportions, its polish and symmetry grades, and its fluorescence under UV light, a factor that can subtly affect how a stone appears in different lighting. Every one of these details is its own small signal of quality, not just decoration on the page.

Reading the clarity plot

The plotted diagram on your certificate maps the stone’s specific internal characteristics like a fingerprint, using standardised symbols for inclusions and their exact location within the stone. This is what makes a certificate provable rather than descriptive: it identifies one physical diamond, not a category of similar ones. Two stones with identical 4Cs on paper will still have entirely different plots, because no two natural inclusion patterns are the same.

A certificate is proof, not a promise.

A certificate is not an appraisal

These are two different documents with two different jobs, worth not confusing. A grading certificate documents the stone’s objective characteristics. An appraisal assigns a monetary value, typically for insurance purposes, and is a separate document your insurer may ask for after your piece is finished.

How we make it provable, not just documented

Most stones above a certain size carry a laser inscription on the girdle matching the certificate. Ask, and we’ll show you the inscription against your certificate before your piece leaves the atelier, so the connection between the paper and the physical stone is something you have verified yourself, not something you are asked to trust.