What's Old Is New! My 3.33 K SI2 OEC.

[onedrop]

Mara, your new/old OEC is stunning!!!! Even better than in the pictures you posted on the other thread. I just love the personality of the stone. The old cuts we are seeing around PS these days are just awesome. Thanks for sharing yours!

 

[TravelingGal]

OMG, the finger coverage! Can't wait to try that baby on!

Congrats Mara...wear this one in good health....for the next 5 years or so until you upgrade to a 5 carater...

 

[Diamond*Dana]

Gorgeous!!!

 

[yennyfire]

Oh Mara, it's a beauty!! It must have been so much fun to play with both stones and really determine which one sang to you! While either stone would have been gorgeous, I really love the one you chose and think that the temp setting is pretty darn awesome!! Yay for you and your new baby!!

 

[Skippy123]

Stunning, I love it!

 

[decodelighted]

I need a Life Alert button handy! Feeling lucky my heart hasn't exploded out of my chest after those shots. Hello Prom Queen! (I still like little shy Yalie but don't have the cash to make her mine.) OWD FTW! Still am enjoying my tiny widdle bezeled babies from them.
Have fun w/the PSers who gettah sniff yo' new bling smell!

 

[luv2sparkle]

very very pretty!

 

[GemFever]

Congrats! She's a beauty. Also, I think 333 is a very good number

 

[Mara]

Mara, what an amazing diamond! It's stunning and HUGE! So happy for you!! I love the temp setting, and as always, your photo skills are incredible!

Would you mind sharing the depth, table, dimensions?

Hey Kim..!

Oops yeah forgot some crucial info huh.

Table is 46%, Depth is 64%.
Polish and Sym are both Good.
Culet is Medium (though to me it's so tiny, can't really see it in regular viewing).
Girdle is v-thin to thin.
Diameter is 9.32x9.6mm so just slightly out of round.

Also I wear a size 5.75 for anyone estimating finger coverage, hehee.

I went from an 8.6mm to a 9.5mm (average) and while it looks really big, dare I say that I totally think I can rock a 4c+??
TG--I am totally thinking within 5 years!! For shame!

 

[Mara]

Congrats! She's a beauty. Also, I think 333 is a very good number

Is it? The interesting thing is that in the email discussion and on the stone itself the specs were 3.32 but the cert says 3.33. I assumed it was some random mistake. I kept calling it 3.32 and my girlfriend kept saying it's 3.33...HELLO it's bigger! LOL.

 

[TravelingGal]

I went from an 8.6mm to a 9.5mm (average) and while it looks really big, dare I say that I totally think I can rock a 4c+??
TG--I am totally thinking within 5 years!! For shame!

Well since we've been around these parts forever, I have no doubt that we'll both be here in 5 years to see it.

But you want to know something scary? Your kid will be in the second grade or so when you do it, and mine in 4th.

 

[Mara]

I need a Life Alert button handy! Feeling lucky my heart hasn't exploded out of my chest after those shots. Hello Prom Queen! (I still like little shy Yalie but don't have the cash to make her mine.) OWD FTW! Still am enjoying my tiny widdle bezeled babies from them.
Have fun w/the PSers who gettah sniff yo' new bling smell!

OWD FTW for realsies. It's always nice when a vendor lives up to the expectations that you go into the situation with.

Not only was Adam great to work with in the whole finding the right diamond, handling the transaction, etc but he's just a fun person to chat with too. And I loved how on the phone it wasn't like he ever had to 'sell' me on anything. It was just what do you want, I think I have the thing, stay tuned, etc...rather than 'oh with us you get blah blah...'...it was just really refreshing for a large purchase. As a PS'er I don't need to hear all the promotional stuff, I just want a beautiful stone. He really seemed to get that without me even having to say it. And their inventory, amazing! It was thanks to justginger's post on her 4c where she said something along the lines of 'Adam sat down to sift through his giant piles of diamonds' that I thought, I need to contact Adam right now! If anyone can find me the biggest bang for my buck, it's going to be him. And whala! The speed with which it all happened totally blew my mind.

Gotta say too that there is such a dearth of the 3c+ stones out there... I feel so lucky. I was thinking well I'll look on eBay and just bide my time but over the 3c mark on eBay, people charge way more than for the 2c stones, and also they are super hard to find. So I felt like this was the opportunity.

 

[GemFever]

Congrats! She's a beauty. Also, I think 333 is a very good number

Is it? The interesting thing is that in the email discussion and on the stone itself the specs were 3.32 but the cert says 3.33. I assumed it was some random mistake. I kept calling it 3.32 and my girlfriend kept saying it's 3.33...HELLO it's bigger! LOL.

I was just going by the roundness of it... plus, in my imagination the number is associated with (Russian) fairy tales... the hero might have to go over 33 (or 333 in my parents' telling) seas and mountains in his quest...

 

[yssie]

Fabulous job Mara!! It's gorgeous (well, we knew that from your first pic on RT ) and HUGE on you!!! The faceting is incredible.


Your stone is modelling in that first white flower pic. Actually the first thing that popped into my head was that M&Ms superbowl ad - she's sexy and she knows it... look at that body...

 

[ariel144]

Well, TADA!...the winner IS...the one with the fiery table...looks like a lot of action from the table...very nice choice...congrats, Mara! Did you get an ASET? Would be interesting to see. Looks amazing on your finger...and definitely set it E/W. Way to go!

 

[Mara]

Well, TADA!...the winner IS...the one with the fiery table...looks like a lot of action from the table...very nice choice...congrats, Mara! Did you get an ASET? Would be interesting to see. Looks amazing on your finger...and definitely set it E/W. Way to go!

The fire and colors off this thing and even INSIDE it as you can see from the last hand pic are insane. It really makes me think, why the hell did I wait so long to get a giant honking OEC? lol.

No ASET... honestly I don't really hold with using the modern tools used to measure RB's with these old stones, but I did toss it under my 6 year old idealscope and try to get a feel for light return as compared to the other stone. It looked good to me but I never was able to use that thing properly anyway so who knows. It does seem to return more light than the 'average' traditional OEC...I was a little worried about fire but as you can see from the pics, that was silly, HA!

Oh the other thing is the crown, LOVE IT!!! Again, thinking why the heck did I wait so long to get a stone with a giant crown.

 

[Dreamer_D]

I can't imagine how we could ever get such specs, but I would be really interested to know how rare such a large old cut really is. To have survived all those years without being recut, that is an accomplishement for any big stone! Yours must have been holed up in someone's jewelery box, or on their hand, or secreted away somewhere.

I noticed on ebay that stones over ct are pretty rare, and over 2ct rarer stoll. Three caraters... not many and they are not good deals. For what you wanted, you certainly went the best (only?) route possible!

 

[gemgirl]

Honey, I think you were completely and totally in the right place at the right time and I'm not sure if you found "her" or "she" found you, but it was a match that was meant to be! She's utterly fabulous! and 3.33...... LOL, really, how good does it get? I'd let her live in her temp home for a while too. Enjoy every minute watching her sparkle and shine. Congratulations!!!

 

[fridays_child]

I need a Life Alert button handy! Feeling lucky my heart hasn't exploded out of my chest after those shots. Hello Prom Queen! (I still like little shy Yalie but don't have the cash to make her mine.) OWD FTW! Still am enjoying my tiny widdle bezeled babies from them.
Have fun w/the PSers who gettah sniff yo' new bling smell!

OWD FTW for realsies. It's always nice when a vendor lives up to the expectations that you go into the situation with.

Not only was Adam great to work with in the whole finding the right diamond, handling the transaction, etc but he's just a fun person to chat with too. And I loved how on the phone it wasn't like he ever had to 'sell' me on anything. It was just what do you want, I think I have the thing, stay tuned, etc...rather than 'oh with us you get blah blah...'...it was just really refreshing for a large purchase. As a PS'er I don't need to hear all the promotional stuff, I just want a beautiful stone. He really seemed to get that without me even having to say it. And their inventory, amazing! It was thanks to justginger's post on her 4c where she said something along the lines of 'Adam sat down to sift through his giant piles of diamonds' that I thought, I need to contact Adam right now! If anyone can find me the biggest bang for my buck, it's going to be him. And whala! The speed with which it all happened totally blew my mind.

Gotta say too that there is such a dearth of the 3c+ stones out there... I feel so lucky. I was thinking well I'll look on eBay and just bide my time but over the 3c mark on eBay, people charge way more than for the 2c stones, and also they are super hard to find. So I felt like this was the opportunity.

I had the exact same experience with OWD back in February. Although the stone I bought was much smaller Adam found me a winner pretty much within 2 hours of our first email. I couldn't believe how "easy" it was.

Out of curiousity, can you tell me what OWD's upgrade policy is? I knew Adam had one, but never asked.

 

[steelmagnolia]

She's beautiful! I've been quietly following along, including seeing your RB up on the Bistro and then all of a sudden it wasn't, so I was certain you'd found the new home for it you had wanted. I also totally agree on Adam, I had reason to just seek his advice a few months ago and he was warm and kind even over email and answered on a weekend! Love the "temp" setting as well!

 

[Mara]

The trade-in policy...the new stone has no minimum requirement, aka it can be $1 more. It's one of the best policies for old stones out there from what I could tell.

 

[fridays_child]

The trade-in policy...the new stone has no minimum requirement, aka it can be $1 more. It's one of the best policies for old stones out there from what I could tell.

Okay, now I am sorry I asked

 

[Mara]

The trade-in policy...the new stone has no minimum requirement, aka it can be $1 more. It's one of the best policies for old stones out there from what I could tell.

Okay, now I am sorry I asked

Always happy to enable!

 

[rosetta]

AMAZEBALLS.

 

[SparklyOEC]

Mara ~ Your new OEC is to die for and your pics...WHOA! I followed your other thread as well and, being an old cut lover, believe you made the right choice. Wear this beauty in health and happiness.

 

[Mara]

I can't imagine how we could ever get such specs, but I would be really interested to know how rare such a large old cut really is. To have survived all those years without being recut, that is an accomplishement for any big stone! Yours must have been holed up in someone's jewelery box, or on their hand, or secreted away somewhere.

I noticed on ebay that stones over ct are pretty rare, and over 2ct rarer stoll. Three caraters... not many and they are not good deals. For what you wanted, you certainly went the best (only?) route possible!

This also is so curious to me. I know that more and more people are recutting old large stones because they can get more for them as a MRB than they could as a wonky OEC.

I asked Adam about the origin of this stone, he didn't know but he did feel quite confident it was a real 'old' stone. I had heard that some sellers feel as though there is are sometimes purported 'old stones' being sold that are actually newly cut...though don't know why anyone would cut and try to pass off something like an OMC or OEC as old if it wasn't because again, you could get more $$ cutting it as a MRB for the general market.

It does make me wonder though what the history of this stone is. I always have been fascinated by this, in fact I'd mentioned to someone years ago after joining PS that it'd be so cool if there was a historical DB on diamonds where people could register saying they'd owned them etc, it would take a while but eventually there'd be a ton of historical data on stones! Not just diamonds, even gemstones etc.

Oh and on this particular stone, it is intriguing. It's a little wonky/out of round, but has the tiny tiny culet, the bit of tranny patterning but still a strong flower pattern under the table in certain lightings. But cut very symmetrically even though the stone itself is not symmetrically round but is not quite cushion etither. I would say that means it's OLD older, but the symmetry of it tells me that it can't be THAT old or else it'd be way more wonky. Super interesting to ponder.

 

[TitanCi]

damn, that's NICE!!!

 

[diamondringlover]

WOW

 

[Circe]

Oh, Mara - that is G.O.R.G.E.O.U.S!

This also is so curious to me. I know that more and more people are recutting old large stones because they can get more for them as a MRB than they could as a wonky OEC.

I asked Adam about the origin of this stone, he didn't know but he did feel quite confident it was a real 'old' stone. I had heard that some sellers feel as though there is are sometimes purported 'old stones' being sold that are actually newly cut...though don't know why anyone would cut and try to pass off something like an OMC or OEC as old if it wasn't because again, you could get more $$ cutting it as a MRB for the general market.

It does make me wonder though what the history of this stone is. I always have been fascinated by this, in fact I'd mentioned to someone years ago after joining PS that it'd be so cool if there was a historical DB on diamonds where people could register saying they'd owned them etc, it would take a while but eventually there'd be a ton of historical data on stones! Not just diamonds, even gemstones etc.

Oh and on this particular stone, it is intriguing. It's a little wonky/out of round, but has the tiny tiny culet, the bit of tranny patterning but still a strong flower pattern under the table in certain lightings. But cut very symmetrically even though the stone itself is not symmetrically round but is not quite cushion etither. I would say that means it's OLD older, but the symmetry of it tells me that it can't be THAT old or else it'd be way more wonky. Super interesting to ponder.

On this topic - might I recommend Al Gilbertson's American Cut? I feel like a broken record because I talk about it so much, but it's a fascinating history of diamond cutting and styles. One of the things he points out is that (as he puts it) "so-called" Old European Cuts were frequently nothing of the sort, and that Americans were both prolific cutters, and interested in building a better mousetrap - er, diamond - from the start, which is what led to "superior" cuts being termed "American cut" long before they were called ideal.

One of the other things he points out is that there's no clear timeline. The book helped me to date my stone a little when I read about how transitionals can be of two sorts -"modern" pavilion, "old" crown," old" pavilion, "modern" crown, - but one of the things that he emphasized most was that there was a lot of fluidity, because cutters tended to adapt the cut to the shape of the rough more back in the day, and because old, talented cutters were working to create innovative cuts alongside young bucks who were still learning the trade at the same time that less creative older cutters were grudgingly adapting to the style set by science-hungry young dealers. So it's not as straightforward an equation as More Wonky = Older. Your stone could very well be a very old piece that was just cut by a master!

 

[hlmr]

Congratulations Mara!!! I love your new stone, it is absolutely stunning! I hope to meet your new, old girl in person someday!!! And can you imagine that you will have even more finger coverage, when she is set W-E