Two reports on the same product from two laboratories, four percentage points apart, and no method stated on either.
Writing it up rather than posting a verdict, because a verdict is not checkable and the detail is.
The four things to check on any report, in order: does it name your batch, who commissioned it, what method was used, and does it report content as well as purity. A report failing any of those is weak evidence regardless of the percentage on it.
One addition: an unstated method makes a report close to uninterpretable. "99% pure" without the technique, the standard and the conditions is a claim, not a measurement.
What would genuinely help is knowing why two laboratories report different purity for the same batch, and which number to believe. Not looking for reassurance. Looking for the part I have got wrong.
VendorMark said:Two reports on the same product from two laboratories, four percentage points apart, and no method stated on either.
VendorMark has the substance of this right. The condition it depends on is worth stating. The provenance questions are more useful than the numbers. Does the report name the batch on your vial. Is the date consistent with when that batch existed. Is it addressed to the vendor or to the person who paid for the test. Was the sample taken from general stock or supplied by the vendor. A perfect certificate for a different batch is worth nothing, and vendor-supplied samples are the most common way a genuine report ends up misleading.
VendorMark said:Two reports on the same product from two laboratories, four percentage points apart, and no method stated on either.
I am more sceptical of certificates as a category than this thread is. The document tells you about a sample somebody chose to send, at a moment in time, and nothing about the vial in your hand. Independent purchase-and-test is a different quality of evidence and everything else is inference.
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View ResultsShort answer first, then the reasoning. Inter-laboratory variation comes from real methodological differences, not sloppiness: which reference standard was used and how it was itself calibrated, the gradient and column, the detection wavelength, and where the integration baseline was drawn. A percentage point or two between competent labs is expected. What is not expected is a large gap, and the usual explanation there is that one report is not of the batch in your hand.