Opinions - Stones for Three Stone Oval Ring

[25yr]

First - let me say how much I appreciate the info and contributions of this forum. You folks take great care of each other!

Well...I have a 25 yr anniversary coming up and I''m looking at putting together a three stone oval diamond ring as a present for my wife. I''ve looked at some local jewelers and have just begun looking online. I''m pretty confident about purchasing online - so I probably will go that route.

I could use some advice. I''m looking for a 1.0 cw center stone and .5 cw each for the side stones (total cw of 2.0). I''m working with one online company that recommends to first chose the center stone and then they will match up side stones. I prefer a G color and a VS1-VS2 clarity range

Here are the ~1 cw cnter oval diamonds they are recommending:

carat col clar dpt tab lab gdl cul sym pol flr measurments L/W Price Wire $
1.01 F VS1 62.9% 55% GIA stk-tk f no gd gd no 7.65*5.66*3.56 1.35 $5,263 $5,158
1.02 G VS1 61.2% 60% GIA th-tk,f no gd gd no 7.91*5.64*3.45 1.40 $5,401 $5,293
1.03 G VS1 59.7% 57% GIA no gd gd no 7.92*5.85*3.49 1.35 $5,066 $4,965
1.05 G VS2 62.9% 55% GIA m-tk no gd vg slt 7.79*5.68*3.57 1.37 $4,569 $4,478
1.0 G VS2 62.7% 57% GIA m-tk no vg gd no 7.9*5.65*3.54 1.40 $4,094 $4,012

Any suggestions on which one would make a good center stone? Also any comments on the side stones being .5 cw each. I have seen a couple of rings with this stone configuration - .5, 1.0, .5, and they looked good together, but I also know that the cut of the stones can vary the size of the stone. Any recommendations on carat/cut of side stones is also appreciated.

Thanks

 

[coda72]

A three stone oval ring sounds great! I love oval diamonds. If I ever get my act together, I''m going to have James Allen make me a three stone ring with an oval center.

As far as I can tell from the numbers, they don''t look that much different, so I would go with the last one since it''s the cheapest. You may want to have the vendor you''re working with check out the stones in which you''re most interested to see what they look like. You want to minimize the bowtie, and you can''t tell that by the numbers.

I think the 0.5 carat sides will look good with the 1.0 carat center. Here''s a picture that shows the ratio of different side stones with a 1.5 carat center.

http://com.pricescope.com/photos/stones/picture448.aspx

It''s round diamonds instead of ovals, but it willl give you the idea.

I hope this helps.

 

[pearcrazy]

I also recommend going with the last one because of the price. Just a thought on the side stones. If you are willing to do some careful searching, you may find that you can save yourself a lot on money on the sidestones by buying them individually instead of as a "matched pair". All of the vendors have a "matched pair" service but I found that when I was looking to buy a pair of pear shaped diamonds to use as earrings first and sidestones later when I upgrade, I could get stones that were certified and matched pretty closely in dimensions by doing some digging. I dealt with DirtCheap and by buying my .30 point stones individually saved myself over $500 that I would have spent by letting them get the matched set from their vendor. I got E color SI1 and 2 clarity, GIA and EGL certified stones for around $600. DirtCheap agreed that what they would get from their vendor would cost much more and wouldn''t come with a certificate. It''s harder to get a close match in fancy shapes but if you''re patient you can do it and the savings is worth it.

 

[25yr]

Thanks for the advice!