What it reads
The score considers only what the issuing laboratory records: proportions, polish and symmetry, color, clarity, fluorescence, measurements, and the report’s own comments. Nothing absent is assumed, and nothing is borrowed from elsewhere. Every fact comes from the laboratory’s own record, never from a jeweler’s listing. Where a report is silent, the reading says so, and its confidence is tempered rather than filled in by guesswork.
What it never reads
Price, jewelers, availability, and commercial relationships have no part in it. No house may pay for placement, a kinder reading, or gentler language.
What the score notices
Beyond the cut grade
A laboratory cut grade is a summary, and a summary can be generous. A steep crown paired with a deep pavilion may still earn the highest grade while returning less light and facing up smaller than its weight suggests. The score reads the angles beneath the grade and notes when a pairing deserves a closer look.
Further reading · Beyond the cut grade
Size, not only weight
Carat is a measure of weight, not of size. Two diamonds of the same weight can differ visibly across the top when one carries more of that weight in its depth, where no one will ever see it. The score considers whether a diamond faces up true to its weight, so that you pay for presence, not for hidden depth.
Further reading · Shape, size, and face-up presence
Color, as it will be seen
A color grade is assigned to a diamond held face-down under controlled light. Worn, the same grade can look warmer in a larger stone, or where a shape gathers color: at the tips of an oval or pear, or in the corners of a cushion or radiant. The score reads color in the context of the stone’s size and shape, not as a letter alone.
Further reading · Color, in context
The same reading, every time
The same report always receives the same score under the same method. Each reading names its version, so a scorecard can always be understood on its own terms. A scorecard you save keeps the reading it was given.
The five readings
- SignatureThe strongest reading for what a report shows across proportions, finish, color, clarity, and fluorescence. Transparency and optical balance still deserve a look in exact-stone video.
- RefinedA strong, well-balanced report. Minor trade-offs on paper are unlikely to decide the matter; confirm the face-up pattern in video.
- ConsideredA respectable report with identifiable trade-offs. Compare contrast, light return, and spread closely before deciding.
- CharacterA report with meaningful trade-offs. Weigh the compromises, and ask for imagery of the exact stone.
- InvestigateSomething on this report needs attention before this diamond is considered further. Confirm the details with the laboratory.
What a score cannot tell you
A report is a record, not a portrait. The score cannot see transparency, the way light moves across the face, or the particular warmth of a color. It is not a laboratory grade, an appraisal, or a forecast of value. Video of the exact stone, or time spent with the diamond itself, remains the final word.
Further reading · How to look at a diamond
The diamonds we read
Every shape is read on its own terms: the round brilliant; fancy shapes from oval, pear, and marquise to heart, cushion, radiant, princess, emerald, and Asscher; and antique old European and old mine cuts. Each is measured against the proportions that suit it, never against the round.
GIA, IGI, GCAL, HRD Antwerp, GSI, and legacy AGS reports, for natural and laboratory-grown diamonds alike. Grades from different laboratories are placed on one scale, a subject the Diamond Academy explores in full. Fancy-color diamonds are not scored by this method.
Further reading · Fancy shapes: what the report can’t show
Read a report →Beyond the number
A score opens the conversation; it does not end it. Every scorecard closes with questions for the jeweler about that exact stone, drawn from what its report does and does not say. For anything further, The Loupe, our diamond advisor, answers from the same reading, with discretion and without salesmanship. It will not recommend a jeweler, and it cannot see the stone itself.
Further reading · Verifying the stone, not just the paper
Questions, answered
Is a higher score always better?
A higher score reflects a more disciplined report. Two diamonds a few points apart may look much alike, though, and the one that moves you in person may be the lower of the two.
Why might a diamond with an Excellent cut grade score below Signature?
A laboratory cut grade sums up the measurements behind it without replacing them. Some pairings of crown and pavilion angles still earn a top grade but deserve a closer look, and the score takes note of them.
Is a laboratory-grown diamond scored differently?
No. Natural and laboratory-grown diamonds are read by the same method on the same scale. Origin itself is never scored, though any treatment a report discloses is taken into account for both.
Can I see why my diamond received its score?
Yes. Every scorecard sets out the strengths, cautions, and questions behind its reading.