Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Daniel Katz of Australia has something to add to the GAAJ story -- their side:

Daniel Katz of Australia has something to add to the GAAJ story -- their side:

More to come but in the meantime this has been GAAJ official response:

On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Daniel Katz wrote:

GAAJ-ZENHOKYO

Sirs,

Please explain :

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/...na014000c.html

" Major gem company manipulated color standards to overestimate diamond quality

A leading gemology company engaged in diamond grading had deliberately overestimated diamond qualities by manipulating color evaluation standards, it has been learned.

The Gemological Association of All Japan (GAAJ) had been using the manipulated color standards between late February in 2007 and late October in 2008, affecting some 338,000 diamonds that were evaluated during the period, industry insiders told the Mainichi."


I would appreciate your quick reply

Daniel F Katz
www.DiamondImports.com.au

The Response

Dear Mr. Daniel Katz,

Thank you for your inquiry.

We are attaching the letter we sent to all our customers as response to the newspaper article.

We hope it will answer any questions raised after reading the article.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any more questions.

Sincerely yours,

Nadia Goldstein
Executive secretary
Nadia Goldstein
Zenhokyo Israel

The Letter

17th May 2010

To our customers,

Our view of MAINICHI Newspapers reports

Gemmological Association of All Japan Co.Ltd.
President Natsuki TAKAHASHI

On 15th and 16th May 2010, MAINICHI Newspapers reported that GAAJ-ZENHOKYO laboratory engaged company-wide in “manipulating colour standards to overestimate diamond quality”.

This press report is definitely not based on true facts. However, I
personally, as well as the company “Gemmological Association of All Japan Co. Ltd” are sincerely sorry for any inconvenience and anxiety that were caused to our customers- inconvenience and anxiety which were certainly not of our doing.

GAAJ-ZENHOKYO laboratory hereby announces that there is nothing fraudulent in our diamond grading, as publicised in the newspaper, and we have been, as always,performing fair grading at our laboratory.

We are determined to clarify the facts of the matter and will devote all our efforts to do it.

In Japan, diamond grading is performed based on the standards employed by GIA, and diamonds are evaluated on the so-called “4Cs” – cut, colour, clarity and carat.

Colour grading is performed based on the system using the masterstones approved by JJA/AGL, which was created by reference to GIA masterstones and was implemented in September 1996.

The system aims to prevent variations in colour grading among the
AGL (Association of Gemmological Laboratories Japan) members by letting the
members possess and properly operate the colour-masterstones, which are approved by Japan Jewellery Association (JJA) and AGL after consultation between them.

Diamonds are graded by highly experienced and trained expert graders.

However, there are always border stones (i.e. stones that are situated between one grade and the next).

Clarity and colour evaluation especially, cannot be quantified or mechanically gauged,so the grading results largely depend on the experience and subjective judgment of the grader.

GAAJ-ZENHOKYO laboratory holds regular meetings to match up individual
evaluation basis to eliminate variation between graders and branches.

The “direction” as described in the news report was a memorandum record of one of such regular meetings.

As it is, we had been receiving several comments that our results on colour gradingwere too strict compared to other gemmological laboratories belonging to AGL, whichraised our graders concern.

After an annual checking up session for diamond grading held by AGL, it was learned that the grading of GAAJ-ZENHOKYO laboratory traditionally tended to downgrade diamond colour that sat very close to the borders.

Atone of our regular meetings as mentioned above, we discussed correction of this tendency.

We systematically researched the trend of GIA or AGL member laboratories
on colour grading, and kept matching up and exchanging information between our expert graders.

As a result, we reached the conclusion that our grading determination on
borders should be slightly corrected, as stated in the in-house document.

The content of the memorandum therefore was summarised for our graders to show the correction range for those graders who tended to downgrade, in order to improve the operation of the approved masterstones with the border stones.

It was definitely not instruction to uniformly upgrade stones by half to one grade.

That regular meeting was held to eliminate variation on diamond grading between GAAJ-ZENHOKYO laboratory and other AGL members, in conformity with the approved masterstone system, and to seek consistent and uniform grading results between our expert graders.

Never did we aim to give “loose” or “favourable” grading results for our own interest as described in the news report.

Again please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused as a result of the news report.

We reaffirm our resolute stance against the report that is in no way based on true facts.

Meanwhile, we are making extreme efforts to prove the report as false and to restore confidence in the industry.

Your understanding is most truly appreciated.

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