Emerald Cut Symmetry? and Setting

[sparkling]

My BF has a round brilliant diamond from Mervis in D.C. from a broken engagement. We are hoping to upgrade that stone for my e-ring as they have a lifetime upgrade. I want an emerald cut. However from their webpage it looks as though only a few of their stones have excellent polish and none have excellent symmetry. Most are GIA rated. Is it even possibly to find an emerald cut with excellent symmetry? If so what does the GIA mean by that for an emerald cut? Would we be better off selling the existing stone and looking elsewhere. The existing stone is a GIA cert just under a carat-I don''t know all the specs but he is pretty detail oriented and I know for the time he bought it 4-5 years ago, it was considered a nice stone a vs1 I think and F color. If we consign it through someplace like DCD wouldn''t it take a long time to sell?

Do people agree I''m better off with excellent polish on an e-cut?

Will a G color look dark? (My mother has an e emerald cut .75 cts but its set in yellow gold, don''t ask me why)

Ideas are welcome.

Also does anyone know whether there''s a wedding set out there with a tiffany solitaire setting for an emerald cut that a channel set baguette band would fit flush next to? Or a setting with two side baguettes that a channel set baguette band would fit with?

Thanks a Bunch and good luck to everyone out there looking for e-cuts

Sparkling

 

[windowshopper]

hello -

if you only want an EC with Excellent polish and excellent symmetry you will be looking a long time. I recently purchased my second emerald cut stone through DCD and my stone has good symmetry and very good polish. Fancies (anything but round) seldom have excellent anything. While it certainly wouldnt be a bad thing to have excellent that in itself doesnt guarantee a good stone and the nominal difference visually isnt worth the extra premium unless of course the cut of the stuff happened to be amazing. You are better off focusing on the cut parameters of the stone in order t get a beautiful looking stone than the finish details. A Good/Good on polish and symmetry can still be an amazing stone --it will be the cut that makes that difference. Check out the fancy cut tutorial under knowledge for specs on fancies.

Oh and it sounds like your best bet would be to locate a stone for comparisons sake at mervis--run it through pricescope for price and make a decision. If the Mervis prices are very high it may be better to sell your stone and buy through a pricescope vendor. When you trade in you get the original price (no inflation adjustment) which is already a loss for you and then you pay their current full retail...

 

[diagem]

A ex-ex emerald cut is hard to obtain, but posible. My opinion is "NO NEED"
You can get great stones with good/ v. good.

You can probably trade your appr. 1 ct. round f-vs for a one ct plus e/c of same quality. (if you reach a fair vendor)

My suggestion for an e/c is a 63-69 total depth %
68 % minus for the table

and the outline is up to your taste, but forget about the ex-ex (waste of time and money)

good luck

 

[valeria101]

Just IMO:

- by GIA''s word, the symmetry grade has no visual impact down to "fair" (mentioned in their recent cut grade research), perhaps the very picky me would find an unfortunate emerald cut with "good" symmetry that looks a bit off. I''d probably not be able to find the dog without some magnificattion though, unless there are lots and lots of carats there to show off every hair split... From this perspective, "Very good" is just ultra safe; "Excellent" - well, whatever, if it;''s there fine, if not not.

- polish and symmetry both have very little to do with how the diamond looks (by the same GIA evidence, and my own 0.2 worth).

- G looks colorless to 99% of mortals (including this one), unless shown under proper grading conditions (culet up, on white background, under proper neutral lighting and next to refference color set).

- any color grade of diamond looks dark ( = drab, lifeless ) if the cut doesn''t bring up brilliance to light it up. The stats on a GIA lab report help very little, if at all, to establish if there are way brighter diamonds out there or the current really is the winner.


Not sure if these address the question... hope some better hint is under way.

As for reselling, it may work but getting back anything close to the original price doesn''t sound likely. Usually trade-in policies are a bit better than the luckyest Ebay / Craiglist deal. I am not familiar with the local sale opportunities, not even remotely... Pricescope evidence doesn''t sound encouraging. But this is just a small bit of reality after all

 

[sparkling]

So when determining cut even for an EC its still table and depth percentage we''re talking about? If so that opens up more options.

Thanks for the reply y''all
Sparkling

 

[windowshopper]

Date: 1/27/2005 8:29:12 AM
Author: sparkling
So when determining cut even for an EC its still table and depth percentage we''re talking about? If so that opens up more options.

Thanks for the reply y''all
Sparkling

yes AND the crown height. its all proportions-- not too deep, and not too shallow, table should be between 58 and 66 depending on all other factors with a crown height of, ideally 12 to 16. If the crown is very flat say 6% you could still have great depth and table........the crown height is very important on an EC. Most out thre are quite shallow with overly large tables. CLean and under bright light they may look pretty but they tend torwards glassiness not brilliance

 

[sparkling]

So that brings up another thing. Many of the stones they have there are EGL certs from Israel. They actually list crown angle etc...If I bought an F VS1 stone with all the "right angles" and an EGL cert and I thought it was pretty not glassy and eye clean, is that lab so inaccurate that it would likely turn out to be an H I (I could live with an G SI as long as I couldn''t see the inclusions)?

I''m guessing these Isreal certs are coming from where the diamond was cut or changed hands? Correct?

I think I read something about a guy in Philadelphia who is an appraiser but also a AGS lab certifier? Is that true and if so could I go up there and make sure it conforms to the EGL certificate specks?

If I say, look I know this is an isreali cert and it doesn''t mean much to me, do you think Mervis would bargain with me or is that frowned upon?

Sparkling

 

[windowshopper]

Date: 1/27/2005 9:12:34 AM
Author: sparkling
So that brings up another thing. Many of the stones they have there are EGL certs from Israel. They actually list crown angle etc...If I bought an F VS1 stone with all the ''right angles'' and an EGL cert and I thought it was pretty not glassy and eye clean, is that lab so inaccurate that it would likely turn out to be an H I (I could live with an G SI as long as I couldn''t see the inclusions)?

I''m guessing these Isreal certs are coming from where the diamond was cut or changed hands? Correct?

I think I read something about a guy in Philadelphia who is an appraiser but also a AGS lab certifier? Is that true and if so could I go up there and make sure it conforms to the EGL certificate specks?

If I say, look I know this is an isreali cert and it doesn''t mean much to me, do you think Mervis would bargain with me or is that frowned upon?

Sparkling

actually i cant really be helpful here...i would think that given the certs the stons would be less b/c a stone with a GIA cert is priced with that in mind... HOWEVER--if they have a stone you like take it to a good independant appraiser like Martin Fuller (dont know except by reputation) and have him confirm the specs--then negogiate if necessary. He will likley give you a fair market value and thats worth knowing. (Don''t know about the Philadelphia person maybe thats D. atlas???)

 

[valeria101]

Date: 1/27/2005 9:12:34 AM
Author: sparkling

If I say, look I know this is an isreali cert and it doesn''t mean much to me, do you think Mervis would bargain with me or is that frowned upon?

I think most would agree with your distrust of EGL grades... EGL-non USA even more so. Whether the seller would simphathize, well, that''s a whole different question

 

[Cynthia]

Just to jump in on this post, I always appreciate when people discuss emerald cuts. I have a question .... is there any way to determine the crown height via a formula? I am asking because getting the table and crown height is next to impossible here in Canada.

Cindy