History
On February 15, 1931, retail jeweler Robert M. Shipley cashed in his savings to establish the Gemological Institute of America. Because most jewelers of that time knew little about the gems they trade, Shipley sought to professionalize the industry through education, research and gemological instrumentation. The fledgling institute, operated out of the Shipleys' home in Los Angeles, offered mail-order courses and gem testing services.
Since the 1930s, GIA has made numerous breakthroughs in the understanding of gems. These include:
- creating the D to Z color scale and the Flawless to I3 clarity scale for diamonds, the internationally recognized standards for evaluating diamond quality (1953)
- detecting irradiated yellow diamonds (1956)
- determining the color of black cultured pearls to be natural (1961)
- the first gemological study of tanzanite (1968)
- the first report on faceted synthetic diamonds (1971)
- detecting diamonds decolorized by high-pressure/high-temperature (HPHT) treatment (1999)
- detecting chemical vapor deposition (CVD) gem-quality synthetic diamonds (2003)
Read more about this topic: Gemological Institute Of America
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