Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has started offering Diamond Sorting Service for D-Z colour diamonds weighing between 0.15 carat and 0.99 carat, from 25 January 2010. The service aims at saving the process of testing and grading all diamonds, and only tests those that meet the client’s colour and clarity criteria, reducing the cost of the client.

When submitting the diamonds, the client must send a minimum bulk of 50 stones, a total parcel weight and the colour and clarity criteria of the stones. Stones are not required to be individually parceled.GIA would proceed with grading if the client criteria is correct, else would return the rejected lot. The diamonds that meet the criteria ultimately get either a GIA Diamond Dossier® or a GIA Diamond Grading Report. Stones that do not meet the criteria will be charged a nominal US$10 handling fee per stone, and returned without any grading information or testing for treatments. Grading or testing for synthetics or treatments will not be done on the rejected stones.

The service will be conducted initially at the GIA Laboratory in Carlsbad, California with other locations phasing the service in shortly. Clients may submit stones to any of GIA’s worldwide laboratories for shipping to Carlsbad and will be subject to local custom restrictions.