The Birmingham assay office has been responsible for hallmarking gold, platinum & other precious metals for over 200 years. The Birmingham assay office uses an anchor as it’s hallmark. Rumour has it that Birmingham & Sheffield decided their assay marks over a coin toss at a pub called ‘The Rose & Anchor Tavern’ on the Strand, London in 1773! A possibly less well known branch of the Birmingham assay office is their superb diamond grading laboratory. Also featuring their historical anchor emblem the Birmignham diamond laboratory is known as ‘Anchorcert’. Anchorcert offer an extremely strict grading service with their full reports even offering a diagram of where the inclusions are in the diamond (if there are any!).
You will notice there is a lot of detail on an Anchorcert laboratory certificate. As well as the carat, colour & clarity of the diamond Anchorcert even cover factors like the cut, polish & symmetry of the diamond that has been graded. As mentioned above you also get a map of where the inclusions are on the diamond. This prevents the rather untoward practice of jewellers just giving any old certificate out with a diamond (yes this does happen but not at RING jewellers!).
At RING jewellers we always recommend choosing a labortatroy graded diamond. Although there are dozens of laboratories to choose from we find Anchorcert & GIA by far the strictest & most honest laboratories. Do look out for other certificates that ‘imply’ they are impartial but are actually printed by the jewellers who have sold the ring. They obviously could have an ulterior motive for grading the diamond a little on the generous side. Look out for certificates with the shop name on. This is fine for an insurance certificates but not for a lab report because the grading should be by an independent organisation.
You can find out more about diamond grading here: https://www.ringjewellery.co.uk/guides/diamond-grading/