- Joined
- Aug 20, 2017
- Messages
- 694
First off I'd like to say thank you to the PriceScope community. Many of you have commented and followed my other thread, and I've received a lot of advice, and both encouragement and criticism, but all with the best of intentions.
Recap for those who haven't followed the other thread:
I started out with a goal: find a 2 carat diamond for under 8K. Why 2 carats? Because I talked to my girlfriend about this, and for her, the definition of a "big" diamond was at least 2 carats. Why 8K? Because I wanted to keep the total cost under 10K, and also importantly, I saw some 2 carat diamonds for just under 8K. I think the cheapest was 6 and change.
Turns out, those original diamonds did not meet the approval of the forum members, to put it mildly. So my search continued into the amazing PriceScope price tool. Surprisingly, this wonderful eponymous price comparison tool receives less mention on PS than many vendor sites do. Through this tool, and through the recommendations of another PSer, I found USA Certed Diamonds run by Martin Sheffield. Now, Martin's website is a godsend. Why? Because according to another trade member, Martin literally posts every single diamond on RapNet on his website. So it's essentially a free RapNet subscription, with the prices slightly marked up.
However, I had a problem. Despite several e-mails, web forms, and voicemails, I could not actually reach Martin Sheffield. However, I started noticing that some of the links on his website would go to other websites, including one called Narola Gems. It's on there that I found my perfect diamond. With the help of some other PriceScopers, I found this 2.07 VVS1 L, faint brown diamond: https://segoma.com/v.php?type=view&id=01IQRWVEPP The Idealscope looked like a near hearts and arrows, and my SO liked the video.
Now the problem is that the diamond was in Hong Kong, owned by an Indian company I had never heard of. So I made a couple of phone calls, and got in touch with Yekutiel at IDJ. I gave him an offer: buy me the diamond, and I'll pay you $400 on top of what you pay. He said yes, with the caveat that this was a one off, not covered by their usual warranty, etc. I agreed. It took him a couple of weeks to get the stone, and in the meantime I decided with my SO on a wonderful 3D halo setting from James Allen https://www.jamesallen.com/engageme...-edge-pave-diamond-engagement-ring-item-49364 It also helped that James Allen was running a 25% off setting sale at the time. After Yekutiel got the stone, he shipped it to James Allen, and after another excruciating, although expected, 3 week wait, we finally got the ring.
Total cost: $9,707. $8,240 for the diamond. $1,467 (including 100 dollar setting fee + 100 dollar over 7mm fee) for the setting.
Enough essay already. Show us some pictures!
On the window sill:
In the shade:
In the car:
Full daylight; you can really see the blue fluorescence:
Taken in a underpass:
Full LED lighting from my USB microscope:
Much lower LED lighting. Can still see the nice arrows pattern:
So is it brown?
Yes, bot that I can tell. Even from the side, it's really hard to tell if any color is coming from the rose gold setting or from the diamond itself.
Would I buy a diamond this way again?
Yes, especially now that I've done it once before. However, I would say that the time investment in learning everything has been very significant.
Could I have bought the diamond for cheaper?
Yes! Easiest thing was that I didn't need a VVS1 by any stretch of the imagination. I could have easily saved 1K or more by finding a VS1/2/SI1. The problem is that well cut L/M VS2/SI1s are, as you can imagine, in high demand, and Narola didn't have a big selection to begin with. After buying the diamond, I got a login to HK, which had a much bigger selection, but unfortunately doesn't use the Segoma/James Allen viewing technology. Even there, it's not easy to find a well cut K/L/M VS2/SI1.
Another way I could have saved a thousand or more is by going with a 1.9 ct stone, but one, most Indian cutters are loathe to cut 1.9s, and two, my SO told me she preferred a 2, just for the mental carats if nothing else.
One other thing I could have done is ordered the diamond directly from India and saved the $400 I paid to IDJ. Now here's the thing: I wasn't comfortable wiring a lot of money overseas to a company I had never heard of. Next time? Maybe. I actually strongly believe that a lot more people will be buying from the likes of Narola and HK in 5-10 years. Their websites are actually great. Instead of having to ask if a stone is eye clean, they'll let you filter by eye clean, by color of inclusion, by hearts and arrows, and a bunch of other things besides. Still, if something goes wrong in shipping or processing, it becomes rather difficult dealing with an overseas company when I'm not in the trade, so I consider the money to IDJ well spent. If a lot of people start buying this route, then maybe IDJ will be willing to do the service for cheaper, and they might even be able to negotiate a small discount from Narola and others like them.
Would I have been willing to pay more for this diamond?
Surprisingly, after knowing what I know now, yes. Based on what I've seen of wholesale prices, I paid a 5% premium on my diamond. The absolute lowest cost PS sellers tack on about a 10% margin on a diamond of similar value. There are others that tack on maybe 15-20%. And then James Allen tacks on 25%, so 2K on my 8K diamond. I'd expect Blue Nile to be around the same as James Allen. So you must be thinking: that seems like a large margin; they must make a lot of money. But the reality is that they don't. Based on how much Blue Nile sold for, I'm guessing they made at most 50 million dollars a year in profit at that time, and to be honest I wouldn't be surprised if the number were closer to 20-30 million. And that's the largest diamond selling website.
Why? Because every thing that we like about the diamond buying experience: the buy back policies, the return policies, the 24/7 customer service, the diamond education and help with selections, the Idealscopes and ASETs, the lifetime warranties, etc. are all large expenses for the retailers. A fantastic buyback/upgrade policy like HPD's could, in my estimation, alone have a value of up to maybe a third of the total cost of the diamond. So for the average consumer, it's absolutely worth it to let the retailers make their limited margin. Now, the nice thing about PriceScope is that there are a lot of consumers here willing to provide the same services for free.
I'm sold. How can I start buying a diamond this way?
Well, to quote Sun Tzu: you need to know your enemy and more importantly, know yourself.
First thing to figure out is just exactly where you and your SO's boundaries are in terms of the 4Cs, and the real boundaries, not the ones based on online videos, which can way overexaggerate flaws, and not the ones based on jewelry store lighting, which can make everything look good.
For me, the key was rose gold. Once I knew that rose gold would hide color, I became much more confident searching in the K/L/M territory.
After that, it's about knowing the marketplace. Many people have heard of James Allen and Blue Nile and maybe even some super-ideal retailers, but almost nobody's heard of Narola Gems or HK, or a dozen other Indian cutters and polishers who supply the vast majority of stones people buy. But they're gaining prominence. They're going to the HK Jewelry Fair, and their websites are, like I said, even better for a prosumer than James Allen or Blue Nile.
Conclusion
Thank you everyone for all of your help and advice in this journey. It's been a lot of learning, a lot of fun, and quite frankly a major addiction. I'm probably, after responding to any comments on this thread, going to take a break from diamonds and jewelry, but thanks so much for being such a wonderful and knowledgeable community. Hope I'll get to see some of you in person one day, and let me know if you're in San Jose!
Recap for those who haven't followed the other thread:
I started out with a goal: find a 2 carat diamond for under 8K. Why 2 carats? Because I talked to my girlfriend about this, and for her, the definition of a "big" diamond was at least 2 carats. Why 8K? Because I wanted to keep the total cost under 10K, and also importantly, I saw some 2 carat diamonds for just under 8K. I think the cheapest was 6 and change.
Turns out, those original diamonds did not meet the approval of the forum members, to put it mildly. So my search continued into the amazing PriceScope price tool. Surprisingly, this wonderful eponymous price comparison tool receives less mention on PS than many vendor sites do. Through this tool, and through the recommendations of another PSer, I found USA Certed Diamonds run by Martin Sheffield. Now, Martin's website is a godsend. Why? Because according to another trade member, Martin literally posts every single diamond on RapNet on his website. So it's essentially a free RapNet subscription, with the prices slightly marked up.
However, I had a problem. Despite several e-mails, web forms, and voicemails, I could not actually reach Martin Sheffield. However, I started noticing that some of the links on his website would go to other websites, including one called Narola Gems. It's on there that I found my perfect diamond. With the help of some other PriceScopers, I found this 2.07 VVS1 L, faint brown diamond: https://segoma.com/v.php?type=view&id=01IQRWVEPP The Idealscope looked like a near hearts and arrows, and my SO liked the video.
Now the problem is that the diamond was in Hong Kong, owned by an Indian company I had never heard of. So I made a couple of phone calls, and got in touch with Yekutiel at IDJ. I gave him an offer: buy me the diamond, and I'll pay you $400 on top of what you pay. He said yes, with the caveat that this was a one off, not covered by their usual warranty, etc. I agreed. It took him a couple of weeks to get the stone, and in the meantime I decided with my SO on a wonderful 3D halo setting from James Allen https://www.jamesallen.com/engageme...-edge-pave-diamond-engagement-ring-item-49364 It also helped that James Allen was running a 25% off setting sale at the time. After Yekutiel got the stone, he shipped it to James Allen, and after another excruciating, although expected, 3 week wait, we finally got the ring.
Total cost: $9,707. $8,240 for the diamond. $1,467 (including 100 dollar setting fee + 100 dollar over 7mm fee) for the setting.
Enough essay already. Show us some pictures!
On the window sill:
In the shade:
In the car:
Full daylight; you can really see the blue fluorescence:
Taken in a underpass:
Full LED lighting from my USB microscope:
Much lower LED lighting. Can still see the nice arrows pattern:
So is it brown?
Yes, bot that I can tell. Even from the side, it's really hard to tell if any color is coming from the rose gold setting or from the diamond itself.
Would I buy a diamond this way again?
Yes, especially now that I've done it once before. However, I would say that the time investment in learning everything has been very significant.
Could I have bought the diamond for cheaper?
Yes! Easiest thing was that I didn't need a VVS1 by any stretch of the imagination. I could have easily saved 1K or more by finding a VS1/2/SI1. The problem is that well cut L/M VS2/SI1s are, as you can imagine, in high demand, and Narola didn't have a big selection to begin with. After buying the diamond, I got a login to HK, which had a much bigger selection, but unfortunately doesn't use the Segoma/James Allen viewing technology. Even there, it's not easy to find a well cut K/L/M VS2/SI1.
Another way I could have saved a thousand or more is by going with a 1.9 ct stone, but one, most Indian cutters are loathe to cut 1.9s, and two, my SO told me she preferred a 2, just for the mental carats if nothing else.
One other thing I could have done is ordered the diamond directly from India and saved the $400 I paid to IDJ. Now here's the thing: I wasn't comfortable wiring a lot of money overseas to a company I had never heard of. Next time? Maybe. I actually strongly believe that a lot more people will be buying from the likes of Narola and HK in 5-10 years. Their websites are actually great. Instead of having to ask if a stone is eye clean, they'll let you filter by eye clean, by color of inclusion, by hearts and arrows, and a bunch of other things besides. Still, if something goes wrong in shipping or processing, it becomes rather difficult dealing with an overseas company when I'm not in the trade, so I consider the money to IDJ well spent. If a lot of people start buying this route, then maybe IDJ will be willing to do the service for cheaper, and they might even be able to negotiate a small discount from Narola and others like them.
Would I have been willing to pay more for this diamond?
Surprisingly, after knowing what I know now, yes. Based on what I've seen of wholesale prices, I paid a 5% premium on my diamond. The absolute lowest cost PS sellers tack on about a 10% margin on a diamond of similar value. There are others that tack on maybe 15-20%. And then James Allen tacks on 25%, so 2K on my 8K diamond. I'd expect Blue Nile to be around the same as James Allen. So you must be thinking: that seems like a large margin; they must make a lot of money. But the reality is that they don't. Based on how much Blue Nile sold for, I'm guessing they made at most 50 million dollars a year in profit at that time, and to be honest I wouldn't be surprised if the number were closer to 20-30 million. And that's the largest diamond selling website.
Why? Because every thing that we like about the diamond buying experience: the buy back policies, the return policies, the 24/7 customer service, the diamond education and help with selections, the Idealscopes and ASETs, the lifetime warranties, etc. are all large expenses for the retailers. A fantastic buyback/upgrade policy like HPD's could, in my estimation, alone have a value of up to maybe a third of the total cost of the diamond. So for the average consumer, it's absolutely worth it to let the retailers make their limited margin. Now, the nice thing about PriceScope is that there are a lot of consumers here willing to provide the same services for free.
I'm sold. How can I start buying a diamond this way?
Well, to quote Sun Tzu: you need to know your enemy and more importantly, know yourself.
First thing to figure out is just exactly where you and your SO's boundaries are in terms of the 4Cs, and the real boundaries, not the ones based on online videos, which can way overexaggerate flaws, and not the ones based on jewelry store lighting, which can make everything look good.
For me, the key was rose gold. Once I knew that rose gold would hide color, I became much more confident searching in the K/L/M territory.
After that, it's about knowing the marketplace. Many people have heard of James Allen and Blue Nile and maybe even some super-ideal retailers, but almost nobody's heard of Narola Gems or HK, or a dozen other Indian cutters and polishers who supply the vast majority of stones people buy. But they're gaining prominence. They're going to the HK Jewelry Fair, and their websites are, like I said, even better for a prosumer than James Allen or Blue Nile.
Conclusion
Thank you everyone for all of your help and advice in this journey. It's been a lot of learning, a lot of fun, and quite frankly a major addiction. I'm probably, after responding to any comments on this thread, going to take a break from diamonds and jewelry, but thanks so much for being such a wonderful and knowledgeable community. Hope I'll get to see some of you in person one day, and let me know if you're in San Jose!
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