GIA plans melee screening service,will grow synthetics

Rob Bates

The Gemological Institute of America lab will soon have the ability to mass-screen smaller stones to check for synthetics, chief laboratory and research officer Thomas M. Moses said in a speech delivered Aug. 31 at the Israel Diamond Exchange.

Later this year, we will be taking delivery of our first high-speed screening [device] for small diamonds,” Moses said. “It will do multiple things, not just screening for natural and synthetics. We expect, sometime in 2016, to have the capacity to [test] 200,000 to 400,000 small stones per day.… I can assure you, it will be done at a price that will easily fit into [your] business.”

The service will be able to evaluate stones from 1 pointers on up, Moses said.

Moses also announced that GIA plans to grow diamonds regularly at its research and instrument-development facility located in an unnamed town in New Jersey.

I am hoping our first run will be in January,” Moses told attendees. “We are not really interested in selling diamonds or synthetic diamonds. But the way we can best meet [identification] challenges…is to do this. This is a multimillion-dollar investment. Outside of Element Six, [we] are the only other group [doing] this for the industry.”

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Source JCK Online