Diamond searching

[ec1]

Hi,

I''ve been lurking the forums for awhile and have been learning a lot about diamonds. I''m looking for an e-ring so that I can propose to my gf. I''ve visited GOG, Superbcert, NiceIce & Whiteflash before the holidays and they seem to have more in stock than. Do these dealers usually stock up more after the holiday season since Valentines is around the corner? The specs that I''m looking for is:

Round Brilliant
.7 or above in carats
F or above in color
VS2 or above in clarity
Ideal Cut to maximize light return

and obviously the cut is the most important which I learned from this site

Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks!!

 

[pqcollectibles]

Have you gotten out and looked at Ideal cut diamonds live and in person?? Well cut (Ideal) diamonds face up much whiter than the actual color grade and the cut can often mask inclusions. If you will consider dropping your color and clarity constraints, you will open up a larger number to select from and realize bigger bang for your buck as well.

 

[Regular Guy]

Hi, EC..

Have you found this utility? Very handy...it only knows well cut diamonds, if you just accept the defaults, and then you tell it the rest of what you want.

Fiddling with some of the criteria you''ve suggested, I came up with a lucky 13 options, one of which is this one, all centered around $3800, give or take $400.

This is close to what you were looking for?

 

[ec1]

Thanks pqcollectibles & Regular Guy for your quick response.

I''ve seen some ideal cut diamonds at a local jewellery store called Brittons in Vancouver, BC. They have some really nice diamonds but quite a bit more expensive than the diamond dealers on the internet. My budget is around the $4200 mark.
Regular Guy, I did see that diamond a week ago and was wondering about that one compare to these two diamonds:

NiceIce:
Link to diamond
.76 Carat
VS2 Clarity
D Colour
FB Flourescence
$4165

Superbcert:
http://www.exceldiamonds.com/diamond/140.html
.76 Carat
VS1 Clarity
D Colour
Strong Blue Flourescence
$4320

I know that Superbcert is a branded diamond and was wondering if that is a good deal for a branded diamond. I''ve never dealt with both companies before but I''ve read a lot good things about them. Since I''m located in Canada, I probably won''t be able to compare diamonds and view them. So any help would be truly appreciated. Once again, I find this a great resource for us newbies looking for diamonds.

 

[ec1]

Hi,

Just a friendly bump to see if anybody has any thoughts or opinions regarding these two stones.

Thanks,
EC

 

[Regular Guy]

EC1,

Sorry to have not written earlier. I did see your post earlier, and suspected I couldn't clarify a great deal. Now that I've gone to look at both stones, I was pretty much right. That is to say, provisionally, both do look quite promising. I'd lean to the Nice Ice one for 3 weak reasons:

1) Though both score 1.2 on HCA, the Nice Ice has more "excellents"... one more for excellent vs very good on scintillation, for whatever this may be worth.

2) a) The Nice Ice one is a bit cheaper, and correspondingly,
b) The SC one a bit higher in clarity, but
c) value-wise, the premium for VS1 over VS2 may not be worth it.

3) Based on one brief series of interactions with SC, I thought I would not like dealing with that proprietor...I had an unfriendly exchange, making me predisposed against him as a vendor.

4) Warning...a better reason may be available to you. For example, images are available at both sites, but I didn't try to compare them, and you could do well to try to do this. Frankly, I find the Nice Ice presentation irritating, with too much text, and I couldn't even find the sarin data on it..I had to go to Pricescopes search by cut database to pull it out. So perhaps you should at least be directed to compare these yourself...and perhaps others here will respond about that as well.

With continued best wishes,

 

[ec1]

Once again, thanks Ira for your quick reply,

Just out of curiosity, it seems like Superbcert doesn''t have much of a presence here, I did a search on Superbcert on this forum but a lot of the discussion was at least a year ago that came up. Does anybody know why they don''t post on this forum anymore. I''m starting to lean more on the diamond from NiceIce just because I''m hesitant from purchasing a diamond from Superbcert if their reputation is poor. Since I can''t view the diamonds before purchasing it, I prefer branded diamonds just because it gives an assurance that the quality of the diamond will be consistent.

Thanks,
EC

 

[codex57]

Superbcert doesn''t seem to post much (not that I''ve seen), but they seem to get great word of mouth. Especially if you''re looking for a solitaire setting that looks just like the Tiffany''s one.

 

[Regular Guy]

EC,

Superbcert has some negative history here, that is unknown to me. Actually, it was in an inquiry to the proprietor there about that, that I got the negative affect.

(edit)...I've just reviewed the Superbcert site again, and see more clearly what you mean; I guess their model is closer to White Flash that I had earlier understood, and so, not only sell, but also craft their diamonds, as well.

When you have two options, there's lots of other related littler things you can keep busy attending to, too. Store policy on returns and upgrades, options for rings to set the diamond into, quality controls for accomplishing the setting of the stone (hopefully this is usually a non-issue?), probably other things.

Anyway, I've never heard anyone knock the quality of Superbcert diamonds, per se. Having looked at their (earlier) site, I kinda wonder if they don't post the same idealscope for each of their diamonds, but - like I said before - I'm not a "visuals" maven. Alternately, one thing I think both Nice Ice and Superbcert have in common is the use of the Brilliancescope. I know Barry at Superbcert feels that this does somewhat uniquely add value.

I DO think it could be cool, since we're talking about this, if there was an interest in both parties to kiss and make up. Having their options available on the search by cut database here would only provide a benefit to consumers. But, I don't know the history, and...each to their own. Meanwhile, doing your own checking seems only prudent.

Best of wishes!