Went to a B&M Store - Now I have questions!

Date: 7/13/2009 12:45:26 AM
Author:Joe241
I went to look at diamonds at a B&M store on Friday and after I mentioned that I was looking for diamonds online the salesman got defensive pretty fast. He throw a bunch of arguments at me against buying online (most of which I already knew were b.s.) but I've got a few questions based on what he said.

He told me that his store gets first crack at the diamonds, so the ones you see online are all diamonds the B&M store rejected. Is there any truth to this? No.

He also showed me a couple diamonds and their respective AGS reports. I noticed the AGS reports had different formats then the reports on WF do. Also WF seems to have more then 1 AGS report format. Can someone explain why there are all these different formats for AGS reports? Ditto Ira, AGS have recently changed report formats to the Platinum Report which replaces the old Diamond Quality Document and the Gold Report for the Diamond Quality Report.

Date: 7/13/2009 11:03:10 AM
Author: denverappraiser
Diamonds have several different distribution channels but the largest at the moment is what they call ‘memorandum’. This is effectively a virtual consignment deal where a shopper requests a stone, the jeweler calls up their favorite vendor who ships them a few stones on consignment that seem to meet the requirements and the jeweler schedules an appointment for a presentation and an attempt to make a sale. If all goes well they pay the bill and keep their cut and if it doesn’t go well they return the stone(s) to the vendor who will wait for some other customer somewhere else and will try the whole thing again. The internet has made this a very efficient system and the jewelers, as well as you, can look at lists of stones available from various suppliers and can order them without actually needing to speak to a human. There are sites with tens of thousands of stones available this way even though they have no actual inventory at all. It’s also the reason that you’ll see the same stone listed by several different suppliers in the big search databases like the one here.

One of the unintended consequences of this is that everyone is sharing much of the same inventory and it tends to drive the quality down to the lowest common denominator along with the price. The solution for jewelers (and online dealers) who don’t want to sell generic goods for rock bottom prices is to actually buy the stones that are most suitable for their own customers. It not only makes the vendors happy, which may result in better pricing or better offers next time, it prevents competitors from having access to that particular stone. I’m guessing this is what he means by them getting first ‘crack’ at the stones. They could have bought them for inventory but didn’t. This is a bit misleading because every other jeweler on the planet, including those online folks, also had first crack and, presumably, all have declined for whatever reason. This doesn’t make it a bad stone, or overpriced, or anything else. It might be, but then the one your jeweler is selling might be too. Not every customer and not every store is looking for the same things and what you might consider a problem (big, crappy cut, cheap) might be just exactly what someone else is looking for. The solution is to evaluate each stone on it’s own merits and each dealer on theirs. If you need help, the forum here is full of folks who are happy to dive in and an increasing number of communities have independent appraisers who can look at things and give you a professional opinion that’s free of commercial spin.

Neil Beaty
GG(GIA) ICGA(AGS) NAJA
Professional Appraisals in Denver