Advice for oval diamond shopping?

[SCZ28]

I've been looking at stones over the last 2 weeks and pouring over the forums here for advice. It seems from reading ideal depth is in the 58-62% range. Most stones in that range I've seen have some visible bowtie an haven't looked as nice as deeper stones. I've also seen several stones in the 65-67% range that look really nice with no bow tie but I know they face up smaller for their weight. I'm not Opposed to buying online but would prefer to buy something I can see. Is it just difficult to find an ideal depth with no or minimal bow tie? Should I rule out the deeper stones trying to find what would be more ideal and that appears bigger? I've bought round before and it was never this difficult

 

[SparklyOEC]

May I suggest calling Jonathan at Good Old Gold? He can find a diamond for you with no bow tie and he'll take pics, make videos and has a great eye for these things. As to your questions, I don't know about ideal proportions; I go by what looks good to my eye and then get a vendor's feedback on the diamond itself.

 

[Rockdiamond]

HI SCZ,
My experience has been that there's really no way to correlate table depth bowtie and overall appearance.
Sometimes both shallower, as well as deeper stones exhibit static dark areas that I would identify as a "negative bowtie". Sometimes the larger facets in the middle of the diamond do form sort of a "bowtie"- but if they flash on and off a lot it can be very attractive.
Facet design and placement has a lot of bearing on this- and it's not related to table depth necessarily.
Basically, if you try to select by those numbers you may eliminate stones you'd love, and include others you won't based on physical characteristics.

 

[tyty333]

Have you looked at JA? If you give us your specs and budget we can take a look and make some recommendations.

 

[Amys Bling]

I'd shop with an online Vendor who provides pics, IDEALSCOPE, and can comment on the stone

 

[SCZ28]

Yes I have looked at JA and they have been very helpful with the search. There was one stone that was appealing and they sent it to be imaged the other day and I should have that early next week. Here is the link. It is a tad deep

http://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/H-VS1-Ideal-Cut-Oval-Diamond-1463144.asp

The goal is something similar to the Tiffany's 3 stone oval. Budget is about $12K. JA said they could do the setting with .5ct matched side stones for the same as the normal 3 stone round setting which is right around $4K so that leaves $7-8K for the center. I prefer the more round ovals than the 1.5 ratio and above. Ideally I would like to have this completed in the next ~2 weeks as I have some tentative proposal plans. Any help is greatly appreciated.