BGI Accreditations
- BGI received permission for the name from the Ministry of Industry in 1999.
- The BGI worked for the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) that has a Government Diamond Office Department, taking part in discussions about the Kimberley Process which is a way to protect buyers from buying conflict diamonds.
- The BGI has been chosen by old established or State organisations such as:
- Christies Auctioneers
- Cartier Jewellers
- HM Customs & Police
- Willis & Co global Fine Art & Specie Lloyds insurers
- UK Govt. Diamond Office at The Foreign Office
- Finnie’s The Jewellers
- Moussaieff Jewellers
- QVC Shopping Channel
- Petrou Antiques
- Beverley Hills Jewellers
- HY Duke Auctioneers
- The BGI is therefore consulted by the Police and Customs as well as SOCA and anti-fraud agencies around the world about gem value and authenticity.
- During the colour grading process the gem is matched to Official GIA Master stones supplied by Lazare Kaplan in New York for an internationally recognised quality.
- The BGI is accredited by the United Kingdom Government Dept. of Trade & Industry (DTI) based in London.
- The BGI also uses FTIR, UV-vis-NIR, Raman, X-Ray and Photo-Luminescence methods of spectroscopy, and LA-ICP Mass Spectrometry.
- The BGI Laboratory Precision Grading System was developed in 1998. This method achieves higher accuracy by refining each colour into finer 1% sub-divisions. This is claimed to be the most accurate system in the world, and out of 4 UK labs assessed by the NAG some years ago, only the BGI was 100% correct in every grade for every stone.
The above BGI Grading Schematic shows the quality of each diamond from BGI grades 1-11; 1 is the highest grade. This visual measure of quality is the first developed in over 80 years of global diamond grading.