depth/table..

[diamond326]

OK I was reading in few places that in order for a PRINCES cut diamond to sparkle a lot its depth needs to be smaller or equal to table.. How come some other places like Whiteflash sells DIAMONDS that are suppose to be very sparkly and their DEPTH is much bigger then Table.. What is going on?? Which one is true???

 

[Cath]

Just want to point out that Whiteflash specializes in rounds, not princesses. Also, are the princesses you''re looking at on their site from their Expert Selection? If so, ES diamonds are defined as:

1) Value for the money: selected diamonds must be extremely competitively priced.
2) Best of the crop: diamonds must be the best looking in their category and are picked using the Ideal-Scope to ensure excellent light return due to minimum light leakage.

By the two definitions above, WF is not saying that they offer the best princesses you''ll ever see. Just good bang for the buck.

If you''re not looking at their Expert Selection but just using their search engine, then you''re just looking at a virtual inventory of diamonds -- again, nothing that WF is claiming to be the best thing around.

Also, I am not a Princess expert, but I thought it was the other way around -- table preferably be less than depth?

 

[pqcollectibles]

Your anger icons are probably the result of frustration. Buying a good performing Princess isn't as straight forward as buying a fabulous Round. There is lots of good information available on the Net and lots of wrong information. It's easy for a new buyer with little or no exposure to diamonds to get confused.

While White Flash cuts H&A diamonds, they purchase and sell other diamonds offered in their Expert Selection. ES stones have been hand selected by Brian Gavin, the cutter of ACA's, for performance and quality.

Use the Cut Charts at www.gemappraisers.com as guidelines as you are considering candidates. Better performers will have table/depth at 75% and less, with the table being about 3-5% less than the depth.

Good Old Gold has put together a "Tutorial" type gallery with information on different diamonds they have anaylyzed.

http://www.goodoldgold.com/virtual_gallery.htm

Scroll down the page and take a look at the Princess Cuts examples that GOG has available. As you will see, the Educational Princess that performed the best in testing in the Tutorial doesn't quite hold to the "Table 3-5% less than depth" rule. Numbers aren't the whole story with Princess Cuts. Specs are just part of the story with Princess cuts. Princess diamonds really have to be seen and visually evaluated.

Here's a couple of links to old threads where some of the experts discuss Princess Cuts with other posters:

https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/desirable-princess-cut-table-depth.4987/

https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/dream-team-q-2-princess-cuts-dimensions.10096/

And here is a link to the PS Tutorial page on Fancy Shapes:

http://diamonds.pricescope.com/fancy.asp

Good Luck with your search.

 

[valeria101]

It is just unfortunate that the lab certs do not give more than those two numbers so it is VERY, very tempting to make rules based on them because obtaining the relevant information is that much harder... And so on.

However, "table
At some point it was mentioned that "depth
There is a bit more about how to evaluate optics directly (Ideal Scope, Brilliance Scope...)

Then there are the AGA charts that talk about table & depth & crown height (see under "Knowledge / Fancy Shapes" on top of this page)... which requires a Sarin report on the diamond. But the AGA grades still do not predict brilliance and the promoters of the cut grades (see gemappraisers.com) have recently added a test of light return to compensate. (reported in the Pricescope Diamond Journal) Back to square on - basically: one still needs to put the optics of that fancy to the test - numbers are just not enough (for now).

AGS is preparing cut grades for princess cuts. "Paul Antwerp" explains those in an article and there are a couple of older threads about them as well. Not up yet

Back to testing light return, that is.


This is about all I know about how princess cuts are selected for brilliance.

If there was a quick way to replace all the philosophy with some guessing based on table & depth percentages alon, I'd bet someone would have already made $$$ out of it. No such thing, yet.
Hope some of the ranting helps. At least stirring some expert comment if nothing more

I just hope someone would pin down a bit of tutorial explaining just what the GIA stats (table, girdle, depth and proportions) tell about a diamond and what they do not tell. It wouldn't have the same salt comming from an outsider like myself.