Need advice on selling a large old mine cut diamond

[carmine7]

I am having a problem downloading the picture from my e mail .The picture on display has no zoom capability.How do I get that feature on to this forum?
Thanks

 

[Loves Vintage]

Not sure I can help with your photo question, but just had to pop in and say the one photo you posted made my heart go pitter-patter! I'm sure we'd all love to see more photos regardless of their format!!

 

[nikkikeith]

yes please a head on shot to see the overall shape please and as someone already said its not a fancy yellow, its in the "less desired" range bc its yellow, but not fancy yellow..just a light tinge, but the good thing is that of all cuts, old cuts are accepted and expected to have a lower color grade

 

[carmine7]

How about a Black Rhodium setting? I think that will look awesome!!

 

[backwardsandinheels]

https://www.pricescope.com/blog/jewel-week-new-ring-old-cut-diamond

Take a look at this beautiful old stone (an M) set in a sophisticated new vintage-inspired setting...

 

[carmine7]

Thanks for the info . I checked out Old World Diamonds and they have some good quality stones.I think they are a little high but I haven`t shopped for a diamond for a long time.My last purchase of a large solitaire was in 1982 for my wife`s engagement ring.It seems prices have gone up a lot.I contacted Grace at Jewels by Erica Grace and just sent her the GIA cert stats along with my not so good photo. Lets see what she thinks.

 

[carmine7]

Well here are some offers $7000.00 if reseller buys it. She said that an M color stone with the same specs would go for about $17,000.00 retail and she takes off 50% which brings it down to $8500.00 then deducted another 20% for the lower color grade which brings it to $7000.00.Wow she pays$ 7000.00 and sells for about $ 170000.00. Thats crazy, I understand they have to make a profit but to make $10,000.00 on a high ticket item is way to much.Its nice if you can get away with it .This is not happening.

 

[carmine7]

Here are some better photos

 

[backwardsandinheels]

It's so pretty! Put it in an auction, I bet dealers would fight over it and a lucky guy could get it for his girl for less than he'd pay those same retailers. You could always put in a reserve-you won't accept less than a certain starting bid. Do you have a daughter to hold onto it for?

 

[carmine7]

I am thinking about doing that but I don`t think Ebay is the right venue for it .I say this because I feel people will be afraid to bid on such a high priced item without seeing it in person.Does anyone have any better ideas? If not ,I guess I will hold on to it. I won`t sell it for $7000.00. That is too low.I can`t believe they make that kind of money on an item.Maybe diamonds are not so rare.I know one thing they are a bad investment!!Think about it how many times were you told to think of your diamond ring purchase as an investment and a purchase.How do they justify the selling price on the Rapport Sheet?Are there really " New Diamonds" then what is a used diamond? Maybe it has to many miles on it!!!I am thinking about all the jewelery I bought in my life Watches , Diamond Necklaces. rings , tennis bracelets.What a fool I am!!Turns out they are not worth half of what I paid for them.They are just high end fashion pieces.

 

[backwardsandinheels]

Ebay may not be right for you. But Joseph DuMouchelle, ABrandtandson.com, Doyle and Doyle, Sotheby's, Christie's, -deal with really reputable houses who know their stuff. Sometimes higher end boutique jewelers may buy directly from you too, bypassing an auction. Having that recent GIA cert will really help you no matter what you decide to do. Keep in mind Rappaport doesn't account for all factors in an individual diamond's value. It's more of a forecast tool, especially regarding rough diamonds/demand/supply for the industry. Talk with a few of them-don't give up! You just gotta put the diamond where the new owner to be can find it and you won't get stiffed.

 

[LALove]

I am thinking about doing that but I don`t think Ebay is the right venue for it .I say this because I feel people will be afraid to bid on such a high priced item without seeing it in person.Does anyone have any better ideas? If not ,I guess I will hold on to it. I won`t sell it for $7000.00. That is too low.I can`t believe they make that kind of money on an item.Maybe diamonds are not so rare.I know one thing they are a bad investment!!Think about it how many times were you told to think of your diamond ring purchase as an investment and a purchase.How do they justify the selling price on the Rapport Sheet?Are there really " New Diamonds" then what is a used diamond? Maybe it has to many miles on it!!!I am thinking about all the jewelery I bought in my life Watches , Diamond Necklaces. rings , tennis bracelets.What a fool I am!!Turns out they are not worth half of what I paid for them.They are just high end fashion pieces.

Have you contacted Jewels by Erica Grace? I've sold jewelry through their consignment program and made much more than I would have by trading it in to a jeweler or selling it privately. With items priced over $10k I think their consignment fee is 10%.

 

[carmine7]

Yes, She is the person I am speaking with.She didn`t say anything about consignment.

 

[bright ice]

You should go to their website page for info on consignment. I have just sent a couple items for consignment.

 

[carmine7]

Does anyone know if Erica Grace posts on this site? The reason I ask is after my kind of angry post (sorry) she e-mailed me suggesting I consign with her.That being said has anyone had success with this type of sale process? I think a great deal depends on the people you consign to.Do you trust them ?I live in New York I think she is in L.A.I am not comfortable sending my diamond to someone I know little about.Please help me decide . Anyone have success consigning and whom did you use?
Thanks,
Carmine

 

[bright ice]

Yes, she does post on this site. I believe several PSers have dealt with them to buy and sell. Many PSers have sent diamonds and had custom rings made by them. I live in Mississipi and just sent SEVERAL thousands worth of valuables. I trust them.

 

[nikkikeith]

dont forget she said an M colored diamond would go for $17,000 and yours significantly lower in color, so if she deducted 20% off of what she was offering you then in essence shes saying your diamond is worth $13,600 right? so still pretty nice profit margins, but she's not making 10k off of it, (not to mention she might have to reduce the price etc if it doesn't sell) and there's advertising and site maintenance fees, (not too bad of an overhead but you get my jist)

but if your all about getting as much as you can for it (which you seem to be) i think your best option is consignment

 

[LALove]

Does anyone know if Erica Grace posts on this site? The reason I ask is after my kind of angry post (sorry) she e-mailed me suggesting I consign with her.That being said has anyone had success with this type of sale process? I think a great deal depends on the people you consign to.Do you trust them ?I live in New York I think she is in L.A.I am not comfortable sending my diamond to someone I know little about.Please help me decide . Anyone have success consigning and whom did you use?
Thanks,
Carmine

Erica posts on here - not sure if Grace does. I've never spoken directly with Erica but I have with Grace and she has to be one of the nicest people I've ever spoken to and I totally 110% trust her! I sold my first ering through them and it was totally smooth sailing from start to finish. I just sent her my ring (I live in MI), we discussed price, she put it up and in a couple months it sold for a really good price. The 10-15% consignment fee is totally worth it as I doubt you'd get what it could sell for via a respected/known about jeweler on your own or by trading it in.

With this type of stone I'd only go thru JbEG. There are other vendors who take in jewelry on consignment but JbEG are really well known on PS for being one of the top go-to-gals for old cuts.

Good luck!

 

[carmine7]

Finally a decent offer of $ 9,000- $10,000 from a reputable dealer in NYC.He gave me this range subject to on sight inspection of the stone.This is worth considering.I will make the trip into Manhattan next week to discuss my options.He also will take the stone in on consignment if I choose that option.

 

[backwardsandinheels]

That is beautiful. I hope it works out for you. I'll keep my fingers crossed for a good price.

 

[pkanawha]

Gee, it pains me to hear you kick yourself for "investing" in diamonds and other jewelry! Even so, it's true (as with other collectibles, antiques, etc... even houses!) that you should buy things only for what you want and/or need. If you're looking for a true financial investment, invest in cash and in stocks and bonds, preferably in the form of no load index mutual funds. Otherwise, leave investing up to the professionals. That being said... If you've made the investments you need (in yourself in the form of education or job training, some emergency money in the bank, money for retirement, etc.), then go ahead and "invest" in enjoying life - whether your investment is in the form of travel, fine dining, or jewelry. If you can get a great bargain on jewelry, antiques, or whatever tangibles (be careful - there are a lot of people out there claiming to offer bargains and investments who are selling something more like 4 magic beans!), then so much the better. Perhaps you'll make a profit on these one day, or maybe you won't. But you will have enjoyed them for what they are... investments in beauty and joy. But please do put your financial investments (education, stock and bond funds, emergency savings, etc.) in order before you start blowing a lot of money on jewelry! You sound like a pretty sharp guy and I'm guessing that at worst, your investments in diamonds will prove to be a valuable investment in your education in The School of Hard Knocks. We've all been there! Good luck to you, whatever you decide to do!

Mike

 

[iota15]

Diamonds are not really investment vehicles. They have some inherent value should - in the odd case - you become a refugee and need to carry small items of large value. You won't receive what you paid for them (and if there was a war that required running from, you'll likely receive much less). haha.

They appreciate somewhat with time - just as most goods that don't deteriorate/rot/consumed. Eventually, you could receive what you paid for it, but that would be many years later.

The other factor you have going against you is that you are a private seller - and only of one diamond. Retailers must make a profit after taking into account their expenses. Buying a single diamond from you is just one of many expenses they have (lights, overhead, carrying costs, interests from debt for buying your stone, having it sit in their inventory taking space for who knows how long, etc.).

Additionally, it's more expensive to buy from you than one of their other sources. They need to pay to have it certified and maybe appraised or assessed. You take much more time to deal with as well - you need time to understand the process, time to negotiate and appraise what the stone is worth, time for them to examine and assess the stone. They can't rely on their prior relationship with you to conduct this transaction.

The general rule of thumb for a Private, Secondary Market Seller, is that you can expect to lose 50% of your initial buying price if you attempted to sell a stone in the same year you bought it. You may lose more, but you may not. You just don't have the reputation/resources of Tiffany's or even JBEG to sell the stone yourself at the price they could.

But you know what? If you were buying retail of anything else, you could likely expect to lose 50% as well. A candy bar at a convenience store is bought at about 50% of what they sell it to you for. Can you expect to buy a candy bar from one store for $1.50 and sell it to another convenience store later for $1.50? Obviously no, you can't, especially since they buy it for 75 cents wholesale. The same goes for diamonds - which is a tradeable/non-perishable commodity.

 

[carmine7]

I would like to clarify a few things about one of my earlier post . First of all I never meant to imply that the stone I was selling was an investment it was given to me by my late Father. The point I was trying to make was , when we go shopping for" Diamond Jewelery " more often then not we are told that the ring we are buying will most likely retain most of its value when and if we do decide to part with . Secondly you can`t justify a 50% the mark up on a $10, 000.item by comparing it to a candy bar. One has to sell a large amount of candy bars even at $100% mark up in order to make $4,000- $7000 profit .In my humble opinion its hard to justify making that kind of money on a single transaction.I am also aware of the cost or overhead one incurs when running a company. I am a Food Distributor who employs 25 people.I wish I could make that kind of money on a transaction. Most jewelery stores that I am familiar with have maybe 2-3 sales people and a few repair people in the the shop to service clients.The space they utilize is somewhat small maybe 1500-2500 sq. feet so the rent and utilities are about the same as any other retail store.In fact a large number of jewelers share space . This is the way they operate in the so called "Diamond District of Manhattan".Here the owner is more often then not the salesman , the bookkeeper and everything else.He or she has what they call a "Booth" this keeps operating cost down.All things considered I find it hard to justify such a big profit! Please remember" Diamonds" are not rare, there is far less gold in the world then there are diamonds.That`s why Gold is traded as a world wide commodity and Diamonds will never be ,but they are beautiful and all the Ladies love them!!I am a fool for love.
The End,
Carmine

 

[iota15]

I realize it's not the same as a candy bar, BUT, how often do you think a low color 3 carat stone moves? Unlike the small sample of consumers we have on PS, an antique chunky stone is also not as big a seller as a modern faceted round brilliant.

It would seem to make sense that in New York, and in the Diamond District, overhead can be both lower and large stones move quicker; hence, a pretty good reason why the New York dealer is willing to give you (what I assume is) top dollar on the secondary market for it. You would know better than I how many candy bars, cokes and chips move in a day at a convenience store. The jewelry stores in the cities I've lived in can have a lot of browsers during peak hours but it's pretty rare to see an actual sale, an even rarer when I see someone ready to put down money for an engagement ring (arguably one of the larger sales). And I visit jewelry shops A LOT - I have a lot of pieces to clean!

Selling a 6,000, 1 carat engagement ring - presumably at 50% mark up means they earned $3000 that day before accounting for expenses. That engagement ring could have been sitting in that store for years. The credit put towards that inventory eating away at any potential profit for years. Not to mention the salespeople's salaries (which can be proportionally calculated for that piece).

For example (and granted, I don't know if any of this is true), I've been eyeing at a 3 ct oval cut on DBL's website for over 2 1/2 years now. It's $27,000. I don't kow how long it was sitting there before I saw it.

If David at DBL bought it on business credit at a 5% rate of interest, that diamond costs him $1,687.50 for as long as I've seen it (half of $27,000 for a buying price of $13,500 x 0.05 interest x 2.5 years - All Assumptions! (not real!)). This doesn't take into account how long it was there before, and how long it'll sit there from here on out, or his overhead (owner's own salary and time, staffing costs, long distance call costs, etc). I certainly can't buy it for a Looooong time - but you know what? Maybe it'll still be there when I'm ready.

If you consign this stone with JBEG or JBEG bought it from you, it could sit there for a long time. There's a 2.5 carat yellow oval in an impecable Leon setting that almost EVERYONE on PS oooh'd and ahh'd over. Never worn. Personally, I think it's going for an amazingly good price. I also believe the price was dropped recently, so the pricing's even better. Even that piece has been sitting there for a good half year now. Who knows how long it'll be there. I thought it would have been snatched up quickly given the advertisement and highly positive response it received from PS - which reaches A LOT of people each day.

 

[carmine7]

That is exactly the point. They will sell more if their margins were lower.The Diamond market is a false market which is controlled by one player Debeers .If they released all the diamonds in their vaults diamond values will be cut in half.There are too many people in the supply chain making to big of a mark up.The bottom line is a diamond is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it!!The Rappaport sheet is meaningless.

 

[pkanawha]

This is getting into some very confusing... also some very interesting territory. Here's a link to an article you may want to read, "Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?", from The Atlantic Magazine. They make many of the same points that you make, that the value is artificially controlled, that diamonds are much more plentiful than we believe but that the supply is controlled by DeBeers, etc. Here's the link:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/4575/
Here's part 2: http://www.theatlantic.com/past/issues/82feb/8202diamond2.htm
And finally, part 3: http://www.theatlantic.com/past/issues/82feb/8202diamond3.htm

Now as it happens, I read part 1 several years ago and haven't yet read parts 2 or 3. (I just discovered them today while looking for the link to Part 1.) So I might say something different after reading parts 2 and 3. But for right now... It's interesting for me to consider that if diamonds are truly abundant and that the prices are high because of Debeers' control... well, shouldn't that have ended now that diamonds have been found in Canada, Russia, Australia, etc.? I may be wrong, but it's difficult for me to imagine that one company can run an ironclad cartel in this many parts of the world. Furthermore, if I had read the first of these articles when it was printed in 1982, I would have concluded that diamonds were certain to plunge in value, any day now. Even so, it's been nearly 30 years and so far no sign of a crash. So if indeed they're managing to keep diamonds as a valued investment that continues to rise at a reasonable though steady rate, then it seems they've succeeded in doing so. (Whether or not this is good for the consumer and good for the market, I'd hate to have to say. In theory, I'd like to think that I believe in the free market system. On the other hand.....)

And now for something completely different... I recently heard that astrophysicists believe that the end state of certain white dwarf stars would be a highly compressed form of carbon, namely a diamond! This had been theorized for years, but apparently they've confirmed the existence of just such a star, BPM 37093. (You can just call her Lucy, after the Beatles' song, "Lucy in the Star with Diamonds" if you'd like.) Here's a link to an article on that:

http://www.suite101.com/content/white-dwarf-star-is-a-giant-diamond-in-space-a229455

It is believed that this diamond is 2160 miles in diameter, about the size of the moon. It's a bit distant at about 300,000,000,000,000 miles (300 trillion milres or 50 light years) away, I'm afraid. And you all know how expensive gas has been lately. Even so.... Anybody care to join me on a road trip? I'll drive and we can split the gas!!

Mike

 

[carmine7]

A interesting read http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/diamond/chap20.htm

 

[carmine7]

I never made it to the dealer in NYC that offered me$ 9,000-$10,000 for my 3 cts. stone. He called me 5 times to set up an appointment. He is willing to come out to me.I guess diamonds are really going up.Hopefully we can get together and hash things out. At this point I just want this off my plate .

 

[canuk-gal]

I never made it to the dealer in NYC that offered me$ 9,000-$10,000 for my 3 cts. stone. He called me 5 times to set up an appointment. He is willing to come out to me.I guess diamonds are really going up.Hopefully we can get together and hash things out. At this point I just want this off my plate .

What success had you?

cheers--Sharon

 

[carmine7]

Hello everyone! After much thought and procrastinating I decided to go the consignment route. I gave it to Goodoldgold.I had a meeting with Jonathan, the owner and I must admit he knew his stuff.He made me feel very comfortable about leaving my stone with him .He is the only person that really truly loved the stone. Everyone else I brought it to found some minute flaw. I think it was their way of negotiating in order to knock my asking price down.I also liked his marketing approach, he made a great video of the stone on his website. My pictures do not come close to his. Here is a link for anyone who wants to see it http://www.goodoldgold.com/diamond/8716.. I wish to express my thanks to everyone who helped me and to the whole Pricescope community for their support.
Carmine