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Brilliant_Rock
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2004
- Messages
- 1,190
Hello...
We''ve started that wonderful and frustrating (read - confusing) process of shopping for an engagement ring. Today we spent some quality time at the new Fey & Company store in Chicago. We were pretty impressed with the good service, warranty, and history of the company. So....now on to the the diamonds. We narrowed down the search to 2 diamonds in particular (at least for our first visit).
#1
1.70
VS1
D
GIA
No flour.
Approx. $19.5k
#2
2.20
SI1
F
EGL
No flour.
Approx. $22.5k
We were looking for some suggestions/guidance on a few issues.
Fey & Company. Anyone know anything about them? The good, the bad, the ugly? I was impressed but would like to hear what others may say.
-They have a good trade-up policy, and a 30 day money back guaranty.
-They also include their own type of certification, and provide that to you as well. Occasionally they will disagree with the original cert and will sell the diamond for a price based on thier cert only. They will only do this if their cert results in a downgrade from the original cert. If their cert results in a higher "ranking", the diamond will be based on the original cert. Sounded pretty good to me.
-We were told that the owners go to "Ramandan"(?) in Israel 4 times a year to buy diamonds and buy direct, therefore cutting out (potentially) some of the middlemen. The prices for the diamonds we looked at seem to be in-line with pricing seen on the web, which surprised me. Clearly we need the full range of specs to be able to compare apples to apples. But at least at the outset they do not appear to be far off. The story about going to Israel and dealing direct with these folks; does that sound like a truthful story? Wouldn''t everyone just do that? I mean why work with a middleman if you know that you need to compete out in the street with a competitor down the road who does not use a middleman and therefore can sell product for less $$$ than you can? I''m sure there must be logical answer, sometimes I oversimplify things.
-We were able to look at the diamonds under a binocoular microscope (10x) and also under an "Ott Light". The Ott light was supposed to present a light that would mimic "real" light instead of the crazy halogen lights in *all* jewelery stores.
My girlfriend who is a professional "lurker" on this board had never heard of the Ott light before; is this a useful tool or a marketing scam? Seemed to make sense to me. We looked at both diamonds under the Ott light from the bottoms, the tops, and the sides. We also looked at both diamonds (one at a time) under the microscope. Under the Ott light, the 1.7 carat seemed to have more "pop" to it; although both were beautiful. Also, when using the microscope, with the 1.7 it seemed fairly difficult to see the inclusions, but with the 2.2 it was immediately apparent (although I could not see it with my naked eye).
EGL cert. After reading this board, this sounds dangerous! I''m just downright frightened by what I''ve read about EGL. The bottom line, is will it really matter? What I''m saying is, if the EGL rates this diamond as F and SI1, and the Fey cert. agrees with that. With the 30 day money back guarantee, I would take the diamond to an independent appraiser and if the ranking was verified, would return the stone. Does that sound like a valid game plan? Our sales person fully recommended that we shop around, as I''m sure she knew that we probably would. No pressure though, which was very nice!
One last thing that concerned us was the discussion about "cut". How can we tell if a diamond is an "ideal" cut? Is running the numbers through the HCA enough?
In our humble eyes, both diamonds looked really good, but we are such newbies!
Thanks in advance for any guidance or suggestions on this most interesting journey!!
Todd
We''ve started that wonderful and frustrating (read - confusing) process of shopping for an engagement ring. Today we spent some quality time at the new Fey & Company store in Chicago. We were pretty impressed with the good service, warranty, and history of the company. So....now on to the the diamonds. We narrowed down the search to 2 diamonds in particular (at least for our first visit).
#1
1.70
VS1
D
GIA
No flour.
Approx. $19.5k
#2
2.20
SI1
F
EGL
No flour.
Approx. $22.5k
We were looking for some suggestions/guidance on a few issues.
Fey & Company. Anyone know anything about them? The good, the bad, the ugly? I was impressed but would like to hear what others may say.
-They have a good trade-up policy, and a 30 day money back guaranty.
-They also include their own type of certification, and provide that to you as well. Occasionally they will disagree with the original cert and will sell the diamond for a price based on thier cert only. They will only do this if their cert results in a downgrade from the original cert. If their cert results in a higher "ranking", the diamond will be based on the original cert. Sounded pretty good to me.
-We were told that the owners go to "Ramandan"(?) in Israel 4 times a year to buy diamonds and buy direct, therefore cutting out (potentially) some of the middlemen. The prices for the diamonds we looked at seem to be in-line with pricing seen on the web, which surprised me. Clearly we need the full range of specs to be able to compare apples to apples. But at least at the outset they do not appear to be far off. The story about going to Israel and dealing direct with these folks; does that sound like a truthful story? Wouldn''t everyone just do that? I mean why work with a middleman if you know that you need to compete out in the street with a competitor down the road who does not use a middleman and therefore can sell product for less $$$ than you can? I''m sure there must be logical answer, sometimes I oversimplify things.
-We were able to look at the diamonds under a binocoular microscope (10x) and also under an "Ott Light". The Ott light was supposed to present a light that would mimic "real" light instead of the crazy halogen lights in *all* jewelery stores.
My girlfriend who is a professional "lurker" on this board had never heard of the Ott light before; is this a useful tool or a marketing scam? Seemed to make sense to me. We looked at both diamonds under the Ott light from the bottoms, the tops, and the sides. We also looked at both diamonds (one at a time) under the microscope. Under the Ott light, the 1.7 carat seemed to have more "pop" to it; although both were beautiful. Also, when using the microscope, with the 1.7 it seemed fairly difficult to see the inclusions, but with the 2.2 it was immediately apparent (although I could not see it with my naked eye).EGL cert. After reading this board, this sounds dangerous! I''m just downright frightened by what I''ve read about EGL. The bottom line, is will it really matter? What I''m saying is, if the EGL rates this diamond as F and SI1, and the Fey cert. agrees with that. With the 30 day money back guarantee, I would take the diamond to an independent appraiser and if the ranking was verified, would return the stone. Does that sound like a valid game plan? Our sales person fully recommended that we shop around, as I''m sure she knew that we probably would. No pressure though, which was very nice!
One last thing that concerned us was the discussion about "cut". How can we tell if a diamond is an "ideal" cut? Is running the numbers through the HCA enough?
In our humble eyes, both diamonds looked really good, but we are such newbies!
Thanks in advance for any guidance or suggestions on this most interesting journey!!
Todd
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