Update to:Thanks and Help!

[duriofont]

Thanks to all who offered feedback and direction! This forum is soo interesting and educational!

Thought you''d find my experience with local jewelers amusing, so here goes. For the last two days I''ve been going to every private jeweler around my small city (pop. 125,000) and it''s amazing how little the salespeople know, what I was told and in what tone. There were no ideals to be found and two of the four stores were adamant that there was no such thing as ideal cut and acted offended when telling me that they only carried the finest cuts. Once they asked the owners (arrogantly) whether they''d heard of ideal cut, they then tried to persuade me that this was a cut that was blown way out of proportion and very overpriced. Then they''d try to get me to "understand" that color was very important and that I should never go below G, VS1. When I stated that I''d heard that you could go lower because the ideal cut offset the color they were adamant that this could not be so and produced diamonds in G, H and I to show me they were "right." (Never mind that these were not ideal cuts) I found it easy to stay grounded and not argue but am so surprised at their lack of knowledge about diamonds.

By the way, one jewelery store owner called to price an ideal and gave me a price of $11,057 unmounted! Although he is clear that I''m not willing to purchase this stone, he wants to show me that there isn''t much difference between ideal and a well cut stone.

When I go to view these stones what do I look for?

Thanks again,

 

[Iceman]

That is so funny; they wonder why educated people don’t buy from them, what town? You can pm me on that if you want.

Anyway, the ideal cut is a real thing and when looking for a diamond it should be on top of your list. How well a diamond is cut has nothing to do with color or clarity (at least clarity above an I1). We all live in a real world without the fancy jeweler’s lights to make everything look good.

First don’t settle for anything less then Ideal.

Second don’t listen to those sales people that use to working at Orange Julius flipping hotdogs one day and our now selling diamonds. Some of them are part time help for the holidays also.

Third if you lined up D to I graded properly it would be hard for a novice to pick out which was which from the face up position (that’s how it’s mounted) they all look white. With clarity, a GIA SI2 is eye clean and put next to a VVS2 you could not tell the difference with the naked eye.

All in all chose the cut. Use the vendors that post on here not the ones that wait on the lunch line for the next person to order. This excludes me; I can’t give advice and then ask for the sale

Don’t be a stranger on here and if you have more questions let us know.

It depends how technical you want to get. You can get an over load and all you really need is a diamond that is ~ white ~ bright ~ eye clean ` and sparkles.

Best of luck

The Iceman