First time poster -- I've found the information on this site very useful.
I've been doing web research with the general idea of getting a 3-stone diamond ring for a Christmas present for my wife of >15 years. The basic plan involved geting a premium .60-.70 ct center ideal round cut with a pair of .30 side stones, all in a platinum setting. Staring at a relatively large purchase price, I agonized enough over the options that I decided to let her in on the surprise and make sure I was getting something she'd actually like. One issue is that she doesn't wear a lot of jewelry and wasn't sure about adding another ring to wear.
The basic plan we came up with is to have this ring replace her original 30 pt. solitaire engagement ring that I bought her as a college student. For sentimental reasons, we would re-set the original diamond as one of the two side stones. When I purchased the original ring, it came with an in-house appraisal from the seller that rated it as G color and VS2 clarity. No lab report or any indications on cut, and I've not had any detailed analysis on it. So the new purchase would be the setting, a side stone roughly matching the original, and a center stone like I describe above. I went down to a local jeweler (CMI in Raleigh, NC) who would be able to do this after the Christmas rush, but I'm sure there are other options. (Aside: He took a look at the original diamond and said that he thought it might be a "high quality SI1", and it sounded like he was being charitable.)
I have a few things I'd like advice on:
1) Doing a "create your own" 3-stone ring from an online retailer seems straightforward. This plan seems substantially more complicated. Is this something that people would recommend doing with an online vendor? If so, how would that work?
2) The original plan called for a platinum setting, but the ring will be worn together with a 14K yellow wedding band and a yellow gold anniversary ring. Presumably, I should use a yellow gold setting on this one to match, right?
3) If the setting is yellow gold, what should I be looking for differently in a center stone? I think I've seen recommendations that you can more easily cut corners on color in this case. Is that so? Anything else?
4) To what extent is it important to match the center stone and side stones in cut quality, color, and so on? Most of the create-your-owns on the online retailers tend to match all three. I want to get a premium-quality center stone, but it's not clear how well this will match up with the side stones, given that I don't have a good feel for the cut quality of the existing one.
Feel free to offer advice on anything else I didn't think to ask.
Thanks,
Pat
I've been doing web research with the general idea of getting a 3-stone diamond ring for a Christmas present for my wife of >15 years. The basic plan involved geting a premium .60-.70 ct center ideal round cut with a pair of .30 side stones, all in a platinum setting. Staring at a relatively large purchase price, I agonized enough over the options that I decided to let her in on the surprise and make sure I was getting something she'd actually like. One issue is that she doesn't wear a lot of jewelry and wasn't sure about adding another ring to wear.
The basic plan we came up with is to have this ring replace her original 30 pt. solitaire engagement ring that I bought her as a college student. For sentimental reasons, we would re-set the original diamond as one of the two side stones. When I purchased the original ring, it came with an in-house appraisal from the seller that rated it as G color and VS2 clarity. No lab report or any indications on cut, and I've not had any detailed analysis on it. So the new purchase would be the setting, a side stone roughly matching the original, and a center stone like I describe above. I went down to a local jeweler (CMI in Raleigh, NC) who would be able to do this after the Christmas rush, but I'm sure there are other options. (Aside: He took a look at the original diamond and said that he thought it might be a "high quality SI1", and it sounded like he was being charitable.)
I have a few things I'd like advice on:
1) Doing a "create your own" 3-stone ring from an online retailer seems straightforward. This plan seems substantially more complicated. Is this something that people would recommend doing with an online vendor? If so, how would that work?
2) The original plan called for a platinum setting, but the ring will be worn together with a 14K yellow wedding band and a yellow gold anniversary ring. Presumably, I should use a yellow gold setting on this one to match, right?
3) If the setting is yellow gold, what should I be looking for differently in a center stone? I think I've seen recommendations that you can more easily cut corners on color in this case. Is that so? Anything else?
4) To what extent is it important to match the center stone and side stones in cut quality, color, and so on? Most of the create-your-owns on the online retailers tend to match all three. I want to get a premium-quality center stone, but it's not clear how well this will match up with the side stones, given that I don't have a good feel for the cut quality of the existing one.
Feel free to offer advice on anything else I didn't think to ask.
Thanks,
Pat