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In-Depth
Looking Back
A history of how the GIA was built.
By Brian Bossetta
It seems unlikely that a failed Midwestern jeweler in his forties would start an organization in the midst of the Great Depression that would forever change the jewelry industry. But that’s exactly what Robert M. Shipley did when he established the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) in 1931. “The jewelry industry wouldn’t be in the same place it is today without GIA,” says David Samuels, partner at Premier Gem Corporation, a wholesale diamond dealer in New York City. Since its inception, education has been the foundation of GIA, according to Roland Naftule, a former member of the GIA board of governors who has had a lifelong career in the colored stone industry. “There was a time when few people across the country were educated on gems. That’s changed because of GIA,” Naftule says. “First and foremost, GIA has always been recognized as the final authority when it comes to gemological studies,” says Jim Clark, chairman of BC Clark Jewelers in Oklahoma City, a former GIA student and past member of its board of governors. “Over the decades, GIA has had a huge impact on the industry through education.”
By the mid-1920s, with his jewelry business overextended and in debt, Shipley left retailing and traveled to Paris to study art. There, he enrolled in correspondence courses offered by Britain’s National Association of Goldsmiths, which enhanced Shipley’s knowledge of gems and sparked his vision: “professionalize the jewelry trade through education.” After Shipley returned from Paris in 1929, a California art dealer asked him to give a series of talks on gems. These 12 lectures attracted scores of jewelers and would become the basis for GIA’s initial correspondence courses, which Shipley traveled the country selling. These correspondence courses would develop into in-house classes — with students mostly from the Los Angeles area — and in 1935 GIA granted its first Certified Gemologist diploma. The success of the classes and Shipley’s growing reputation as a gem expert helped GIA grow, even with the Depression still in full swing. In 1934, GIA published the first issue of Gems & Gemology, the institute’s flagship journal. The same year, Shipley founded the American Gem Society (AGS) as a professional guild of knowledgeable jewelers.
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After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the jewelry industry suffered, along with the rest of the luxury goods market, as the nation dedicated itself to the war effort and millions of American men left for military service. Shipley Jr. had left for active duty in 1940. To replace his son at GIA, Shipley Sr. hired a student from the University of Michigan who was working on his Ph.D. in mineralogy. That student, Richard T. Liddicoat, would be associated with GIA for more than a half century and would leave an indelible mark on the institute and the jewelry industry. But not before he, too, interrupted his career to serve in the military, leaving GIA in 1942 for the Navy. With reduced revenues from the precipitous drop in enrollments from men going into military service, along with the impact of the war on the jewelry industry, GIA’s very existence was threatened. In response, Shipley decided to change the institute’s status to nonprofit. Through industry and private donations, he was able to raise $50,000 in endowments to finance GIA’s survival through the war years. After returning from the war, in 1953, Liddicoat developed the International Diamond Grading System,TM which remains the industry standard, basing it on Robert M. Shipley’s 4Cs — cut, color, clarity, carat weight. “Diamonds wouldn’t be as expensive as they are today,” Samuels says, without Liddicoat’s grading system “because nobody is going to spend money on a diamond unless they have confidence in its quality. GIA tells the public what the diamond is and the public believes it.” In the old days, says Robert Klein, owner of Robert Klein Diamonds in New York City, dealers would argue over the quality of a stone. “That’s no longer the case,” Klein says. “Once GIA says what the stone is, there’s no question. GIA has made it easier to sell stones.” “There’s a standard today, a level playing field, in selling diamonds because of GIA,” says Richard Friedman, president of I. Friedman & Son, another New York City jeweler. “Years ago, you had to grade a stone yourself. You didn’t have GIA to fall back on.”
After the war, with the GI Bill allowing returning vets to get an education on Uncle Sam’s dime, GIA’s enrollment mushroomed. In 1948, the first Graduate Gemologist (GG) diploma was awarded. Two students cashing in on the GI Bill to enroll at GIA would etch their names in GIA and industry history. The first, G. Robert Crowningshield, enrolled in GIA in 1948. Two years later, in 1950, he became director of GIA’s New York office. There, he produced much of his cutting-edge work, including methods for detecting yellow irradiated diamonds and publications on pearls and sapphires. The second student, Bert Krashes, who enrolled at GIA in 1949, studied under Crowningshield and Liddicoat and went on to help lead GIA’s lab to its place of world distinction. GIA flourished in the postwar years and through the 1950s and 1960s, but with the arrival of the 1970s and the diamond investment boom, the institute’s growth skyrocketed as diamond prices went through the roof. But it was not to last. In January 1980, the worst recession since the Great Depression hit the U.S., causing diamond prices to plummet and many dealers to file for bankruptcy and others to close shop. To survive, GIA had to make deep personnel cuts and roll back its programs and the pressure on Liddicoat took its toll. In 1983, he suffered a heart attack and had to step aside. By the mid-1980s, with the recession over in the U.S. and Japan beginning its meteoric economic growth, global diamond demand was rekindled and GIA started to recover and expand.
Though GIA brought its first overseas classes to Israel in 1970, it was the the institute’s 1988 Master Plan — a strategic blueprint for the future that included increased laboratory services, a world headquarters and global expansion — that fueled the resurgence of the diamond industry and the spread of GIA’s influence beyond the U.S. “GIA’s presence has not just been felt in the U.S., but all around the world,” Naftule says. “Liddicoat’s grading system brought a new perspective to the diamond industry and that made global expansion easier.” In 1989, GIA opened in Korea and through the 1990s expanded to Italy, Taiwan, Thailand, Moscow and Hong Kong. In 2001, it opened offices in London and China. GIA also extended its research and grading presence abroad, opening labs in Mumbai, Johannesburg and Gaborone in 2008 and Japan and Israel in 2012. “I was always in favor of expansion,” Naftule says. “It has certainly helped GIA financially, but it has also made GIA services more accessible around the world. And that’s been good for the entire industry.” Today, headquartered in Carlsbad, California, on an 18-acre campus with a state-of-the-art lab and library, GIA operates out of 14 countries, with 11 campuses and 7 labs. It offers a variety of diploma courses, including Graduate Gemologist, Graduate Diamonds, Graduate Colored Stones and Graduate Jeweler.Article from the Rapaport Magazine - April 2014. To subscribe click here.
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