GIA Changing Cut Report

By ROB BATES, Senior Editor -- JCK Online, 8/1/2001 2:00:00 AM

The Gemological Institute of America will likely tinker with its famed grading reports next year to include more information about a diamond's cut.

While an actual cut grade is not in the cards, GIA is looking at ways to make the added information relevant to both the trade and consumers.

"It's one thing to add more information, but we also want to explain why it's important," says GIA president William E. Boyajian, adding, "We are close to a whole different level of understanding about cut. It could be a paradigm shift in people's thinking about it."

Boyajian stresses that any change in the report will be "evolutionary." "Any time we change the report, it could shake up the market or cause confusion, and we don't want to do that," he says.

Researchers also note that the second part of GIA's ongoing research on cut will likely agree with the first—that there is no one "ideal" cut.

The second part of the study measures fire in different diamond cuts. Like the first study—on brilliance—no single set of proportions outshone the others. "Our results indicate that there are as many ways to cut a fiery diamond as there are ways to cut a bright diamond," says Dr. Mary L. Johnson, GIA's manager of research and development.

Adds Boyajian: "It's not like the Ideal cut's not a nice cut. But I'm not fond of the term 'Ideal,' and I'm glad people seem to be moving away from it."

The study will be released in the next six to eight months, Johnson says.

GIA is running a series of articles on the history of cut research in its e-mail newsletter, GIA Insider. To subscribe, send a blank email to: sub-giainsider@gia.edu.