Please Fill in the Blank...I need HELP

Date: 1/7/2009 5:16:09 AM
Author:rtdds
Well let me just start off by saying this is my first day here and I'm sooo happy I stumbled upon this site. Reading through the posts I'm adding quite a bit to the little I know. There seems to be lots of knowledgable people here and even some jewelers and I think thats great! I'm a diamond newbie and really had zero knowledge on diamonds so I started my ring search about 5 months ago at the local mall, i.e devons, kays, zales, etc. I wanted to get an idea of what my girlfriend was going to like. I got the basics like ring size, diamond size, color, setting and decided to take that and do further research online. At first this was to gather information so I could go back into the jewelers to make an informed decision on the best ring, but now I'm finding that it's going to be signifcantly less expensive to do my purchase online. At first I was skeptical because its such a big purchase to do over the internet, but after reading others experiences I am confident in the online process. So this is what I'm looking for: 1.8 - 2 ct princess stone, H-I color, SI-1 or better, Good-Very good polish/symmetry (this might be a dumb question, but this is basically the cut right?), mounted in platinum setting. I've been mainly looking at bluenile and ebay and have seen these in a range of $6,000-12,000. I basically want something big and sparkly. I've been with my girlfriend for 7 years and she doesn't ask for much so I want this to be special. I am on a budget but can save enough in the next few months to make this type of purchase. Ideally I would like to spend 8k on both stone + setting but would spend a max of 10k.

Well after reading through post after post, I've realized I definitely don't know enough yet. I want something thats going to be big and sparkly and thats not going to look yellow on a plat setting. Please help me fill in these areas with a range for each. I've also noticed EGL diamonds were less expensive...would you purchase EGL? Are all the diamonds found in the PS search legit? Any help would be great appreciated

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