An identification report answers two questions — what the stone is, and whether it shows signs of treatment — and once you can read its few short lines, you can also verify them against GIA's own records.
What an identification report is — and is not
A GIA identification report does two things. It records the physical characteristics of an item — weight, measurements, shape, cutting style, color — and it states what the material is: whether it is natural, and what species it belongs to. Any treatment the laboratory can detect is named as well. That is the entire scope of the document.
What it does not do is grade. GIA's diamond grading reports assign the familiar cut, color, clarity and carat scales; identification reports assign nothing of the kind — no score, no tier, no letters. If a listing cites a "GIA grade" for a nephrite piece, the document is being misread. The report identifies, and stops there.
For jade, the distinction matters more than most. In trade usage the word covers two different minerals: nephrite, a dense rock of amphiboles in the tremolite–actinolite series, and jadeite, a pyroxene. They can look alike to the eye and differ clearly under instruments — which is precisely why an independent identification is worth having.
Reading it line by line
Start at the top. Every report carries a unique report number and an issue date. The number is the key that ties this document to this object in GIA's archive, and you will need it again for online verification. Keep it with the piece.
The conclusion is the heart of the document. For nephrite it states the result plainly — natural nephrite jade — while the species line may give the mineral makeup, actinolite–tremolite of the amphibole group. Either way, the laboratory has determined by measurement, not by eye, what the item is; the interlocking felt of microscopic fibers behind those words is where nephrite's famous toughness lives.
Next, treatment. Nephrite elsewhere in the market may be waxed, resin-impregnated or dyed, so the report states what testing found, in wording such as "no indications of impregnation." The phrase is precise: under laboratory examination, no detectable signs of wax or resin filling were found; dye, when detected, is stated separately as "dyed." The restraint is deliberate — the laboratory reports only what its instruments can find, and this line says it found nothing.
Then the physical record: weight, measurements to the hundredth of a millimeter, shape, cutting style, color, and a photograph of the item. These details exist so that paper and object can be matched to each other. A report is only as meaningful as that match.
Verifying a report online
GIA maintains a free public tool called Report Check, reachable from the top of gia.edu. Enter the report number, select Look Up, and the archived record appears. Report Check covers all GIA reports; for recent ones it also shows a PDF facsimile of the document and, where applicable, an image of the item.
Then compare three ways: the online record against the printed report, and both against the object in front of you. Check the conclusion line, the treatment wording, the weight and the measurements — for a piece set in metal, dimensions are the practical check, and a millimeter caliper settles them. If the number returns nothing, or the description fits a different object, stop and ask questions first.
One note on scope. Report Check confirms that a document matches GIA's records; it does not update the report or say anything the report does not. A report describes the item as it was examined on the issue date — if a stone is re-cut afterward, the measurements will no longer agree, and that is exactly the kind of mismatch the comparison is designed to surface.
Our practice
For high-value pieces, a GIA identification report is available on request. When a piece is submitted, it is submitted on its own, so each report number stands for that piece alone — one document, one object, verifiable by anyone who holds the number.