Help, My Head is Swimming, Need Help with Two Stones

[lagavulin16]

First off, thank you everyone for an absolutely wonderful forum.  I have been diligently reviewing and reading this forum for a few weeks now and the knowledge that I have gained is amazing.  My question is this:  I have narrowed down my choices of stones to a jeweler here in NYC and Whiteflash.  The stone that I found in NYC has the following characteristics:

Carat:  1.02 Round Brilliant Cut (6.52 - 6.46 - 3.98mm)
Price:    $8500
Clarity:  VVS2
Color:    F
Depth:  61.7
Crown:  34.9
Pavil:    41.1
Table:    55
Cutlet:  0.6 very small
Girdle:  thin to medium (I think the Sarin report had a 1.1%)
Polish:  excellent (according to GIA)
Symm:  excellent
Fluor:    none

I believe the HCA number I got was 2.8, although I am not a 100% sure what this means.  Very good, very good, good, very good.

The stone from Whiteflash has the following characteristics:

Carat:  1.01 Round Brilliant Cut (6.49 - 6.54 - 3.97mm)
Price:    $8390
Clarity:  VVS2
Color:    F
Depth:  60.9
Crown:  34.7
Pavil:    40.9
Table:    55
Cutlet:  None
Girdle:  thin to medium
Polish:  excellent (according to GIA)
Symm:  very good
Fluor:    none

The HCA number was 1.6, excellent, very good, very good, very good.

The price is about the same, but does the lower HCA score mean the Whiteflash stone is far superior, it is about $100 cheaper.  If it is not far superior, I would like to support my local jeweler and buy the stone from him.  Any thoughts would be appreciated as would alternate suggestions.  I am hoping to propose by the end of this month.

Again, thank you in advance for everyone''s assistance.

 

[chantheman]

Hello Laga and welcome to PS.

You have brought up an often discussed issue. The HCA is a great screening tool, but not the predictor of actual diamond performance. You truly must see any stone in real and varied lighting conditions to fully assess its performance.

The first stone would grade an AGS 0 Ideal, but you are taking a hit on the HCA for your Pavillion Angle greater than 41. The pavillion angle is the most critical angle in the diamond, and at the 41 degree mark there is much belief that light leakage can become an issue. The score of 2.8 is not terrible as you can see you hav a very good in fire, brilliance, scintillation, and spread. Not at all a bad stone. The fact that your local jeweler has access to it and you want to work with him adds value.

One thought however.....why VVS2. Drop down to a VS1 or VS2 and you should still be eye clean. You will even be able to increase your stone size. Many on PS feel that VVS is overkill. Why pay for what you cannot see?

The second stone is also very well cut. White Flash has a great reputation and Brian Gavin can tell you how the stone performs in various lighting conditions. You can take him at his word. He will not sell you a stone if there is a risk you will not be happy. The score of 1.6 is due to the fact that the pavillion angle is under 41 degrees.

Would you be able to tell a difference in the two stones, possibly not. Make sure you look at the stone from the B&M in multiple lighting conditions and buy it if you like it.

Possibly have Brian and White Flash send the stone in for you to look at. If you can compare the stones side by side you will be able to make a really educated decision.

It looks like you are on the way to making a good decision.

 

[lagavulin16]

Hello Chan,


Thank you so much for the information and I think that I agree that maybe concentrating on a VVS stone is not really the right way to approach this. I can''t tell the difference between a VVS and VS stone and so I think I may look at VS stones still in the F color range and concentrate on the cut of the stone.

This forum is great!

 

[Lord Summerisle]

While the 2 post above give good advise where you could trade clarity and colour down for extra size within your budget without being able to see a difference.

Certainly is seems a common thing on here… specially getting on for larger rock… but you don’t have to. If 1ct is all your after, (not EVERY girl wants a huge rock, or at least that’s what she tells me when she said nowt larger than .4ct) and its well within your budget to stick to the D,E,F VVS range then go for it. As someone sig states… its harder to find a mind clean diamond than a eye clean.

Personally when I posted here, the same was said, I was looking at 2 stones, a F VVS1 and a E VVS2 – was steered towards the lower colour and clarities. But looking round, in the end, I came back to my first choice of F VVS1 .308ct A Cut Above from whiteflash

In the end its CUT that should determine. And while the HCA is good at weeding out crap cuts…. It gets difficult to use it solely to differentiate between similar diamonds. And comes down to how it looks to your eye – the first one you put, remember after the score it says “Very Good - Worth buying if the price is right” its on that knife edge point on the chart… another .1 degree in the pavilion (41.2) and its down to a score of 3 or so. Pavilion of 41.3 and its scoring 4.1 on the chart… good, if price is your consideration.

So I would suggest, while the WF rock is a cert on its specs (it scoring below 2) check the sarin info… making sure that the max and min crown & pavilion angles are within 0.5 of each other (the angles noted are the ave angle of all the (major) facets of the diamond – ie the biggest facets on the crown, the Kites, and the long facets on the pavilion, the ones that stretch from girdle to cutlet.

For the one from your local jeweller, might be worth seeing if he’ll allow it to be sent to an appraiser of your choice who has a sarin machine so you could run a scan so you could get the numbers.

Hope this helps.

Might be worth getting yourself a little Ideal Scope. So you can have a look at the one presented by the local guy, and see how it’s light return matches up with that of the calibration cubic ze. It’s a handly little tool for seeing light return… the more pink, red, black the better… white can be bad in the wrong places… tho a little white around the edges seems to be ok – it adds to the contrast and fire of a diamond I have heard tell.