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
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)