I get questions fairly often asking if I provide a certificate of authenticity with the items I sell.
I don’t, and its largely due to a personal belief that the majority of the time they aren’t worth having.
In the assorted mineral, crystal, fossil, and gemstone industries I would arguably fit into, there are several types of certification for authenticity of products.
The two main common types are ‘self signed’, and those signed by an external body, which I’ll refer to as ‘external’.
Self signed certificates are issued by the business themselves, and are typically a piece of paper or card with a message saying “we guarantee these are genuine minerals, crystals, fossils, etc”. This would be the type of certification I’d have to offer; and I don’t think it really adds any value to the pieces. Realistically, most of these would end up straight in the recycling.
The other type, external certificates, are more reliable, but far from perfect. My business, Albion Fire and Ice, covers a pretty wide range of items. I supply minerals and fossils to their respective collectors, I supply gemstones to jewellers.
There are several museums that do offer consulting services to identify items; I have never enquired about these services as I don’t think I sell a single item as expensive as they would charge for a single consultation. If I was to sell a t-rex skull or a diamond the size of my fist – yes, I’d be getting in touch.
While museum accreditation is well recognised, I do not believe there are any industry wide accreditations for single specimens of minerals or fossils – happy to be corrected though!
Gemstones are a slightly different matter, and are the real subject of this post. There are accredited centres around the world dedicated to the certification of gemstones. The most well known of these is likely to be the GIA, the Gemological Institute of America – however, there are dozens, if not hundreds of other labs. Real certifications are an excellent investment for high quality gemstones, but I’m talking three figures plus.
The issue is some of the smaller labs – if they are, in fact, actually labs at all!
However, many small labs are perfectly credible. We cannot tar them all with the same brush.
However, they are not all legit.
I’ve chosen a particularly egregious fake for the example in this post, but it does show the level of sophistication of these scams quite well.
The first thing to note is that the ‘dodgy’ labs tend to use a name similar to other labs, possibly to confuse consumers. That said, most labs are known by three initials, so some overlap and similarity is always going to happen.
The certification on the clearly fake specimen below is from “AGI Labs”, also referred to as the “ASIAN GEMOLOGICAL INSTITUTE”.
This is likely another confusion tactic, as there are so many organisations with similar names it can be difficult to research an organisation.
If we simply search for “AGI gemology”, Google will bring up several other similar named organisations, including:
- Accredited Gemological Institute of New York City (AGI)
- Antwerp International Gemological Laboratories (AIG)
- Antwerpse Gemologische Instelling (AGI)
- Asian Institute of Gemological Sciences (AIGS)
- AGI Laboratories (AGI)
- American Gemological Institute Laboratory (AGIL)
For a consumer, this could be quite confusing; perhaps even quite convincing.
“If they’re using the AGI name they must be legit – I couldn’t start a business called Nike!”
Anyway. On with the tale.
I found a particularly hilarious looking “Watermelon Tourmaline” on eBay. 84.05 carats, and I scored it for the bargain price of only 1.29USD.
The seller had 4237 feedback, with 95.6% positive, a member since 2017 and an eBay top-rated seller. I was definitely in for a bargain here. It comes with a certificate and everything, so I’m pretty confident I’m quids in.
When it arrived, I was stunned by the sheer beauty of the fine gem I’d purchased. Or, rather, just how bad it was. Not too long after taking the photographs, it disappeared somewhere never to be seen again – it might have been the bin.
However, it was interesting. It was made of two conjoined pieces of glass, with an obvious void inbetween them where the glue hadn’t quite evenly joined them. One half of the glass had been broken before gluing them together, which I found extra funny. Talk about minimum effort.
The thing was, though, it wasn’t the ‘gemstone Tourmaline’ that was interesting. Obviously.
When it said it came with a certificate, I was expecting the equivalent of a piece of paper that said “lol this is tourmaline”.
Instead, I got a printed plastic card with a photo of the actual piece, measurements and weight of the actual piece, and characteristics which would actually match Tourmaline.
On the card, the logo is a blue diamond with the letters AGI – which a Google search reveals is the actual logo of the Accredited Gemological Institute of New York City (AGI) I mentioned above.
The card bears a few names – AGI Labs, AGI Laboratories, and the web address agilabsindia.com – which as of 12/08/2021 was a valid and surprisingly decent website. It lists several locations around Asia, presumably implying multiple labs.
The rear of the card runs through a fairly standard set of appraisal terms and conditions and gives us an email address to contact them. Obviously, I have emailed them some bait.
The website is probably the thing that impressed me most. It loaded very quickly, which gives it an air of professionalism – I’m in the UK and they’re in Asia, typically there is a 5-10 second delay, which may make some people think they’ve invested in website infrastructure.
The website itself isn’t terribly written, and is very simple and clear, the most prominent button is one to check your certificate. When you do, it ‘verifies’ it by displaying a copy of the certificate on the screen.
Presumably, this means that they are storing all of the characteristics – shapes, sizes, etc in a database, and generating the certificate when the ‘number’ L140 is entered. It would be interesting to see the database.
I can definitely see people being tricked by this – well, not the one I bought, but a higher quality piece with an online ‘verifiable’ certificate?
Sure. I’ve seen worse.
no, i’m in the US. 🙁
when you say “fully hallmarked” what do you mean?
the “white gold” has an almost illegible, smaller than usual 14k stamp, but that’s all. and i’m thinking it was faked.
but the “tourmaline” is another story! too bad i can’t attach a picture
Ah, here in the UK we have a scheme that guarantees quality of metals and it is illegal to sell it if it isn’t stamped with numerous markings.
You are very naive or pretend to attract attention. Look at the price you Moron. I study gems for 6 years. Mine is good. AGI never gives me a problem. Today certificate can be bought even Gemological Institute Of America or AGL, Gubelin, SSEF.
You seem to have missed the entire point of this post. Read it slowly and feel free to leave another comment.
I have some “diamonds” with these beautiful card certificates. I’m wondering if it’s possible for these diamonds to actually be fake but still pass a basic hand tester. I do know heat treated diamonds exist. Would these labs be able to do a diamond dust coating causing them to pass a diamond tester?
Hi Lorri,
I’d recommend speaking to a gemmologist in your local area, or if you’re in the UK, contact GIA. I don’t know enough about diamonds to give a confident answer; I think it is possible for the small ‘contact’ testers to be fooled though.
I purchase approximately 200 gems a month it is a very clear lesson I learned early if it is a price that is too good to be true such as my favorites benitoites that are way over a single CT faceted and frankly under $50 most times over four cts and some over ten the largest benitoites ever found that have few inclusions at gem quality àre not close to those sizes frankly I have never heard of one that is near the sizes and clarity they show on top of that I haven’t found a single gemstone that was actually what it claims with a certificate from the asiam agl site you mentioned just curious if you found a single gemstone that Is what they claim at best you are going to get a manmade version of a so called natural Untreated gemstone but most times not even that very simply if it’s not a truly reputable certification you can verify before you buy don’t and if it is dramatically underpriced your most likely getting a fake period your not going to get a gemstone that sells $1000 a CT minimum for under $10 period don’t trust ebay’s listings also I have yet to have ebay remove a single seller I proved was intentionally mislabeling silver for a example as pure sterling that isn’t even a plating but a vemilie basically in a week the such thin layer of silver on it will rub off now I have gone out of my way to show twenty items from a single seller all states being pure sterling silver and not one was and they are still selling on ebay claiming real silver I get my money back it’s a hobby they try to nagoiate and refund only part or make you pay return shipping and that tends to be as much as you paid and there isn’t really a way to track it with a signature once you send back to India or china the two main places but if you stick to your guns it’s fake they lied you get the refund without paying return shipping yet still ebay let’s then continue to commit fraud that is what really gets me they know they are ripping people off yet they still don’t stop a single one I provided absolute proof of and they never even change the description that was proven deception they are crooks now I have gotten some nice gems at decent rates but not something for a couple dollars that’s over a hundred it will be fake
For the love of gems, use a smidge of proper grammar! This entire thing was a terrible, run on sentence; i couldn’t understand it! It seems you had something important to say, but I just couldn’t get through it.😔 OMG😫. A period (.) or a comma (,) goes a long way.