Need opinions on this stone

[Anthonyd]

Hi there,

I was wondering what you though of this ring, and a suggested price (if possible):

HRD certified
shape: brilliant
weight: 1.04 ct
clarity grade: vvs1
fluorescence: medium
colour grade: exceptional white + (D)
measurements: 6.57-6.65mm x 3.93mm
proportions: very good
girdle: medium 3.5% faceted
culet: pointed
table width: 63%
cr. height: 12.5%
pav. depth: 44%
finish grade: very good

What would be a fair US price for this stone?
Any comments about it at all?

Thanks in advance!

 

[quaeritur]

Well... I guess it all depends on what you're looking for in a diamond. With these dimensions, it does not look like a very good stone, though it will look large in terms of diameter for its carat weight.

Using your dimensions and the Holloway Cut Advisor (HCA), it seems to fall into the "fisheye" zone. You may want to read about it here. According to the HCA, it scores 5.7, with scores under 2.0 representing the top cut stones. This one rates a "Good - only if price is your main criterion" with only fair color light return and fair scintillation.

Personally, I think it's a pity to buy a diamond of such amazing color and clarity in what I'd consider to be a mediocre cut that will not show it off at all. Cut is probably the single most important factor in the beauty of a diamond (assuming the clarity is not so low as to make it opaque), and I suspect you would have a much prettier stone if you prioritized cut over color and clarity.

 

[Anthonyd]

Interesting read you linked me too. I am a bit confused(obviously a rookie). How come HRD certifies the proportions as "very good". This according to HRD standards is the highest score. Can you shed some more light on this?

 

[Anthonyd]

oops please reply to [email protected]

 

[quaeritur]

Sorry, I am not very familiar with how HRD grades cut. For what it's worth, I put much more faith in some of the tools offered here (like the HCA and the AGA cut grade charts at www.gemappraisers.com) than I do in the cut grades currently used by grading labs. Of the labs, AGS at least provides the relevant info (I believe EGL does too) for judging cut, but currently, even AGS "ideal" proportion stones can be borderline.

Maybe one of the appraisers who have seen more HRD certs can offer their opinions here?

The good news is that you found this forum... you'll get a lot of great advice and knowledge, both from members and the tutorial available here

!

 

[reena]

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On 10/11/2004 4:51:56 AM Anthonyd wrote:





Interesting read you linked me too. I am a bit confused(obviously a rookie). How come HRD certifies the proportions as 'very good'. This according to HRD standards is the highest score. Can you shed some more light on this?
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what q said. and also, i don't really know what the cert means by "proportions", but i'm assuming it is a criterion similar to "symmetry", and as far as i know, a diamond that has good symmetry is not necessarily going to be well-cut..

 

[alexah]

into the pricescope search engine, type: HRD cert & you'll get two pages of posts... the first one i clicked on implied that HRD is as good as GIA

 

[Anthonyd]

I received alot of different responses, and am still confused. Basically, if HRD certifies it as "very good" their highest score hpw can it not fall into an "ideal cut"??

 

[quaeritur]

Again, I'll defer to the experts on this. But the bottom line from what I've seen is that most labs just really don't grade cut in a way that makes sense. GIA, for example, grades polish and symmetry. But you can have a stone with excellent polish and symmetry that, because of the crown and pavilion angle relationship, leaks light rather than reflecting it back to the viewer. I don't know how HRD grades their cut, or I could offer more help, but my best guess is that it's more like GIA. It might be that they just look for the stone to be within some tolerance in diameter variation and no deeper than X amount, which really isn't enough to guarantee great performance. It's "very good" within the limitations of how they grade that, but not in the realm of ideal cuts. Does that make sense?

I would, however, trust HRD's color and clarity grades. As I would GIA and AGS, and maybe EGL-USA. In that sense, HRD is a highly respected lab.

These things are in the process of changing as the industry catches up with newer technologies that can quantify light return, but it's not going to change fast enough to help you right now.

My best suggestion is to look at the tutorial here, and maybe also the ones at www.goodoldgold.com and niceice.com if you want to understand the reasons why this stone is not likely to be great in terms of performance. If you have a chance, I'd recommend you look at it next to an AGS 0 graded stone, and see if you see a difference.

It's a lot of stuff to learn, and can be very confusing. Keep asking questions though, it's the best way to find a diamond that will be stellar!

 

[Anthonyd]

I did some reading on teh HRD website, and of course they state that they take into account everything that HCA does, (fish eye, black table reflection, culet visible in bezels, window, single cut) Any "pros" or "experts" please follow this link and if you click download it will open up a PDF document from HRD.

I am beginning to think that there are "proportions" that are tolerable. So if HRD grades it as "very good" (their highest score) this diamond must be proportioned very well. I might be wrong, again, can anyone shed some light, or forward this to someone who might be able to shed some light.

Here is the link I referred to:

http://www.hrd.be/productservices/certificates/diamond_grading.aspx#cut

Anthony
[email protected]

 

[reena]

well, the diamond you posted was rated as having "very good" proportions, but Q just told you that based on its specs and the HCA, it does not appear to be a well-cut stone. so.

 

[quaeritur]

OK, I've looked at the link. The tolerances for their top cut grade are HUGE!


/idealbb/files/HRDprop.gif


Without trying particularly hard (one try, actually) I got a score of 7 out of their "very good" range.




Look, the important thing isn't one measurement or another, but how those angles relate to one another. If it's too steep on one place, you can still get a nice stone if it's shallow enough in the complementary place. The problem with charts like this is that they don't take into account the importance of that relationship. They just say, OK, perfect #s would be X, Y and Z. So we'll say anything that's within 2% of X,Y, and Z will be our top quality cut.




For a better explanation of why that doesn't work, look at these links:


http://diamonds.pricescope.com/tolk.asp


http://diamonds.pricescope.com/agsideal.asp (AGS has the same probs, though at least their range is a lot tighter than HRD's, apparently)




Also, to see what much of the industry is using for determining cut grade, look at the much tighter ranges here:


http://diamonds.pricescope.com/round.asp


http://diamonds.pricescope.com/round.asp

 

[Anthonyd]

If you are saying that cut "is how all the angles relate to each other" Maybe this stone works? This is why I am confused, if we enter it's numbers in the HCA we get 5.8/5.7, yet HRD claims it's highest mark. Somewhere teh scoring is flawed.

If it is all about relation and angles there should be ONE definitive answer. Either HCA or HRD. The question still remains, what is the opinion on this cut? I have heard varied responses from "great" (becasue that person trusts HRD and I have heard someone say it's a hideous cut and they wouldn't use that stone to cut glass. This si why I am VERY curious!

 

[quaeritur]

The HCA looks at the relationship between the different angles, and is designed to weed out poor performers. The HCA arguably weeded out this stone, because it did not score a 2 or less. I see nothing in the HRD info that you provided that tells me they really examine the relationship of angles. Furthermore, they say that up to a 66% table is "very good." That's nowhere near what any other lab or Tolkowski himself would have called good. Certainly, AGS, another highly respected grading lab, has higher standards for what they label their highest cut grade.




I'm afraid you'll have to decide for yourself which one you trust. I'd say, let your eyes be the judge, have your jeweler call in a stone that scores /www.pricescope.com/idealbb/images/smilies/2.gif[/img].




I can tell you that if I were shopping for myself, I would not buy the stone you posted about. I look for amazing light return and liveliness in my diamonds, and this one just doesn't seem likely to have those qualities.

 

[Anthonyd]

bump

 

[valeria101]

Date: 10/11/20043:21:21 PM

Author: Anthonyd

Somewhere the scoring is flawed.


Either HCA or HRD

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Why would one be "flawed" ?This is just saying that HCA's standard is stricter than HRD's . Some diamonds that get top HRD cut grade will also get top HCA cut grade, but other may get HRD's top grade and be considered mediocre by the stricter HCA standard.

HCA is not the only alternative cut grading standard besides HRD's. Other grading labs such as AGS and EGL have their standards and both are still stricter than HRD!Compared to the HCA, AGS is stricter and EGL is less strict.

So, from the strictest to the less strict standard the order may be: AGS, HCA, EGL, HRD . All call their top cut grade with resounding words ("ideal", "top", "best", "very good", "excellent" what not, only "perfect" is banned by the FTC). Looking at how these standards are defined, you may agree with the above - it is pretty straightforward to check ranges of angles with one another and see which is narrow and which is wide.

At this point, I believe you may find puzzling how the finest diamond in terms of color and clarity may flop on any standard at all. Well, cut precision has little to do with the material itself, just as color and clarity grades have nothing to do with each other.

There are M/IF and D/I1 diamonds. And there are ideal cut M/I1 and mistreated D/FL.

Everything in-between is still possible.

There are ideal cut D/IF too.

About price:

You asked how much a diamond like this would cost around here... well, my guess says between 10k and 12k for a random cut, and about 14k-15k for an ideal. I am not sure how HRD's color and clarity grades translate to GIA's though, and there are not too many quotes for HRD diamonds on the Net. I would expect a GIA (and/or AGS) report on a diamond with such high grades anyway.

There aren't too many D color (sorry, lower and higher shades of D can be detected, but are not reported by labs), FL/VVS1, ideal cut are listed anywhere at any given time. A quick search yielded two examples - one sold, one not. Both are good for reference, I would think.

1.12cts D/VVS1

1.2cts D/IF

I do not have an example of round brilliant with precisely the proportions you have posted. If you do wonder where it may rank on the same cut grading scales used to describe to two pieces above, that can probably be guessed. However, most tests are done on the diamonds themselves, not numbers - so some guesses may be harder than others.

Of course, you can also decide that there is such as thing as too strict cut grading. Sure there is- only this means different things to different people. And to different grading labs, as I tried to explain above.

Hope this helps

 

[Anthonyd]

Thank you for your response. Your fingers must be tired from typing all of that. Anyway, I gues where the confusion lies is this. How can their be such a variance in cut qualities. It is either a good cut or a bad cut. If HRD calls this their best cut, yet HCA calls it mediocre (at best) what gives.

I realize there will be some variation (for instance giving a d in color by one lab may yield a e in another lab) But why the HUGE variation in cut scores?

Who determines what a "good" cut is, is it strictly only in the eyes o the viewer?