As I said in my original e-mail. GIA has copyrighted their
system and does not distribute their system freely. If I use it I
would be violating their copyright.
GIA would be pretty foolish to design and teach a colored stone
grading and color description system if they did not intend to allow
people to use it. You MAY use it without violating their copyright,
just as you can read a book about jewelry making and then make jewelry
with that without violating the books copyright. And you
can describe the colors of gems, in writing or otherwise, using their
terminology without violating their copyright. I’d guess that what
you can’t do is write books about their systems and sell those books
teaching folks to use their system. that’s what THEY are selling,
and your books would likely be violating their rights. But they
publish their system with the stated intent and hope that the industry
will adopt and use it, and of course, buy their coarse to learn about
it in the first place. If the system is not adopted and used by the
industry, then teaching it to their students is a waste of time. What
they are in business to do is to educate. They sell their educational
materials, training, books, classes, etc. The system itself is
available for use by those who wish to use it, especially those who
have taken the course and thus can be relied upon to be actually using
the complete system as it was intended to be used. Proper use of the
terminology does require that one state that one is using the GIA
color description system, and thus due credit is given to GIA for
their system when its used. No system, GIA’s or yours, would be valid
if the system itself were not identified in like manner when it’s
used.
Also, you mentioned that your system reveals saturation and tone
values, implying that GIA’s system does not. That’s not true. The
GIA system does reveal these. A proper GIA color description includes
both the hue notation and the numeric notation for saturation and
tone. An example: slbG/6/4 is the shorthand notation for a “medium
dark, moderately strong, slightly bluish Green”
Also, although I have never seen a GIA handbook on color stone
grading, I have never heard mention that GIA uses percentage of
brilliance in grading.
The GIA colored stone grading system does indeed consider percentages
of not just brilliance, but windowing and extinction as well in
arriving at a cut grade, along with symmetry, finish, and several
other aspects. It’s not specifically stated in the actual final cut
grade, but all those factors are, indeed, taken quite thoroughly into
consideration in arriving at the final cut grade. And they’ve got a
pretty decent (In my view) system for classifying clarity in colored
stones as well. A daunting task when you consider the different
ranges of available clarity in colored gems, and what’s acceptable in
one gem vs. another.
While I’d say you’re to be commended for your attemp to create order
and uniformity in an industry where chaos still seems to reign
supreme, I can’t quite get past the feeling that your attempting to
reinvent the wheel here. The GIA system is really quite complete.
You’re going about setting up your own system without actually
investigating and learning about the already established system that’s
already there, and being taught to many students every year. I wonder
whether the introduction of another competing system will not hinder,
more than help, the goal of consistant color communication in this
industry. I would point out to you that one of the greatest strengths
of the GIA system is that it, like their diamond grading system, is
NOT based just on what they’d like to see in the industry. It’s based
on the evaluations and practices of what the industry already looks
for, but doesn’t consistantly describe. So, for example, your post
states “IMHO, I believe percentage of brilliance…” etc. The thing
it, right or wrong, this is just your opinion. And you then design a
system based on your views. The result cannot belp but be weighted
to just your own perceptions of the way it should be. The GIA
systems, on the other hand, are based on the extensive research of
many people, and the practices found with many dealers and experts in
the field, both at GIA and around the world in the industry. While no
two people will ever agree on everything, the result of developeing a
system in the way GIA did is that it will be a pretty good average of
the way most of the industry believes things need to be done. That’s
more likely to suit the needs of most of the industry than any system
developed by just one person.
David, unless you’re in a position where you really cannot afford the
relatively modest cost (considering that they offer time payments, and
in comparison to the cost of so many other aspects of the jewelry and
gem business) of the GIA colored stone grading correspondence course,
I would strongly suggest that you at least take that one course. I
suspect that once you bite that bullet and take that course, you’ll
find yourself wondering why you ever resisted it. It’s really very
well done, and far more complete than you appear to realize. And it’s
not a difficult course to complete. Without completely familiarizing
yourself with your competition, how can you properly assure yourself
that a new system is warrented, or that you’ve indeed done it the way
it should be done?
There are, indeed, some weaknesses in the GIA system. Most notably,
within some gem types, the differences in value between really subtle
differences in color can be quite significant. I’ve yet to see any
system based on strictly visual estimates of hue, color, or
saturation, that can really differentiate. The GIA gemset based
standards come close, but not quite perfectly, when trying to describe
the colors of the most costly of gems. Emerald, in particular, seems
to fall into this catagory, and some rubies too. The GIA colormaster
is a bit better on these subtle gradations, but falls short in the
most intense saturations. Of all the systems I’ve seen, The AGS
colorscan system, which is no longer offered, came closest within
these most costly gems, yet it had major problems with anything other
than the gems for which it offered actual color chip samples (Not to
mention major problems just with delivery and backorders of the system
samples themselves from AGS, a long dead story that still makes me
angry as I recall it, so I won’t). So it was quite limited in it’s
own way. The GIA system’s weaknesses come simply from the fact that
it’s been designed to describe the color of any gem in any color.
That’s simply too wide a field to be done without a few weak areas.
But they come pretty damn close, better I think, than anyone else has
done. At least in my view…
Well, enough of this soapbox. I think I’m starting to sound like a
preacher. Sorry 'bout that…
Peter Rowe
