The Truth About GIA Origin Reports: Only The Diamond Miners Are The Winners (Not The Consumer)
Channel: Concierge Diamonds
Date: 2019-11-08

We recently went to a GIA hosted event where representatives from GIA attempted to sell us on the idea of  their “origin reports”. While we applaud the attempt at transparency and GIA doing what they can to prevent exploitative labor, their current execution of Origin Reports is deeply flawed and only benefits the largest diamond miners in the world: DeBeer’s, Petra, Argyle, etc. 

With the origin reports, GIA has basically created an uneven playing field that allows these large players to mix their rough diamonds together prior to submitting them to GIA. DeBeer’s mines diamond from all over the world: South Africa, Canada, Russia, Botswana. 

So when GIA issues an “origin report” for a DeBeer’s diamond, they don’t say what country it’s from. They say: “it might be from one of the following four countries. It could be from one of these four countries because that’s where DeBeer’s says they’re from. ” 

As a consumer that bothers me because if I'm paying for an origin report but being told the diamond's origin could be from one of four places, well, that’s not telling me anything at all and is pretty misleading. 

But as a diamond dealer it bothers me because I think GIA should say to the miners, “Show us the rough stones before you mix them so we can ACTUALLY assign origin to them.”  A rep from GIA said they’re working on it, but, as we all know, with large organizations, these “negotiations” will take a long time. 

Another massive problem is that they cannot issue origin reports on existing stones, they can only do them for freshly mined stones.

Know how many stones have origin reports? Right now, less than 12,000.  Know how many diamonds are in the  market? Millions.  So what are the odds of you, the well-intentioned customer, wanting to get one of these origin reports only to be told that the kind of diamond you want isn’t available with an origin report, or if you DO find it, it’s 20% more expensive than another stone.  Is that something you’re going to way to pay for? 

To learn more about the GIA Origin Report Process and the inequity it creates watch my video.  We’re saddened that this is the course of action GIA took and hope they work to correct it. 

Dan Moran, Concierge Diamonds 
www.ConciergeDiamonds.com