The American Gem Society has added a new shape to its diamond cut grading system.

“The big news is that the Gemological Sciences Committee has approved a new emerald cut diamond grading system,” announced Peter Yantzer, executive director of the American Gem Society Laboratories and Gemological Sciences. He made the announcement to his audience at June 1 session on “AGS Fancy Cut Grades” during the two-day education program preceding international JCK Show (June 3-7) in Las Vegas.

The new system he said was approved by the committee during the AGS Conclave in April. Yantzer presented the relevant charts and said the new grading system would be officially unveiled “in three to six months.” Ideal 0 (i.e., top quality in the AGS cut grading system) emerald cuts will “be coming soon, within the next year or so,” he predicted.

The session’s topic was “AGS Fancy Cut Grades,” a system which was five years in development, has a scale of 11 grade (from 0, the best, to 10, the worst) and 11 factors (divided into Light Performance, Proportional Factors and Finish).

The importance of the new system is that it is a methodology,” said Yantzer, meaning it “can be applied to any shape or facet arrangement of diamond.”

He also noted that the AGSL board of managers had:
 
* Approved putting lower girdle length information on AGSL reports for round brilliant diamonds, starting Apr. 11, to allow those using the reports to “make direct comparisons to GIA’s new cut grading system.” (He noted, though, there “had been no collaboration between GIA and AGS about this. “It’s a credit to both organizations that we are as close as we are in our grading systems,” he said, adding that AGS has also created cutting guideline charts for the round brilliant charts GIA has published.

* Approved an additional Princess crown variation. “Cutting guideline charts for this new variation are nearly ready for release,” he said.

Such developments and relevant information like “forward and reverse ray tracing,” part of the AGS cut grading system is, said Yantzer, “new gemology, the leading edge of gemology.” The end result of such advances like the emerald cutting grading system will be “prettier diamonds for you to sell and for your customer to buy.”

JCK