Post by brandanop » February 28th, 2005, 7:27 am
Hi All,

I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone that helped me to pick out "the perfect stone". I picked up my Whiteflash .998ct. I color SI1 ACA diamond on Friday, and it is beautiful. First, I''ll start by saying that Denise is Fantastic. She put up with weeks of various requests and changes of heart. I finally setted on the terrific stone in the link below:

http://www.whiteflash.com/diamonds/diamond_details.aspx?idno=1105231#

I saved 5% by wiring money.

For those of you who are terrified of spending big $$ online (like I was 2 weeks ago), all I can say is that Whiteflash was perfectly professional and helpful. Over a period of a few weeks, the service that I recieved along with posts like this one eased my fears.

I had the stone shipped to the famous Martin Haske. It just so happens that I work 15 minutes away from him. He was quite an interesting and impressive guy. He used the SAS2000, firescope, and various other tools to appraise the stone. What impressed me most was that he named off the table percentage, crown and pavilian angles within .2% by eye! The SAS2000 was very cool. I am a technical guy, so I appreciated the photochromatograph(?) output graphs he showed me. He explained that my stone was probably mined in an area that had a natural source of uranium nearby. He deduced that simply by looking at the slope of the graph at a particular wavelength. He indicated that it was common to see such a slope when stones had been exposed to radiation. Very Impressive! I didn''t realize he was an MIT genius... Bonus! All of the Whiteflash specs matched. Martin said that Brian is doing a very nice job on the the ACA line. That also made me feel good. He also told me that the price I paid was very fair and that I would have seen a markup as high as 100% if I had purchased the same stone at the mall. After teh appraisal, Martin spoke with me for almost an hour about gemology and the diamond industry, it was a wonderful learning experience. His service was top notch.

In any case, both Martin and Whiteflash really came though for me, just as many of you did when I posted various questions.

Martin also urged me to make sure I go to a good jeweler to set the stone. He said it would be a shame to put such a well cut stone into a bad setting. He suggested Mark Morrell. Considering I had already been talking to him for a couple of weeks, I thought it was a good suggestion.

I feel lucky to live in Boston. It seems that a lot of very talented Diamond people live here too.

I hope that the rest of you who are just starting your research find Pricescope to be as wonderful a resource as I have.

Regards,
Pete