best prices for fancy yellow

[MarciaB]

I am in the market for a fancy yellow diamond ring. I saw a spectacular one last Thursday in St. Thomas, but just hadn''t done enough research or shopped enough to make the plunge.

This is a major purchase for us, and will be my 50th birthday present. And like everyone I want to get the nicest cut/quality/size for the best price!

WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE???? We have a local jeweler my husband can run to at the last minute for nice gifts, earrings, bracelets, etc. We also purchased a 1ct white diamond from him along time ago, his prices are ok, but am not sure he can get our best price for what I want.

We also have friends who have friends who know a diamond dealer in South Africa, who supposedly can get great prices. And then there are some great stores in the Caribbean.

I am a little confused on the color grading. I think it goes fancy light yellow, or is that just light yellow? Then fancy yellow, intense and vivid. The prices seem to skyrocket with the intense and vivid. I know vivid is out of our price range, I would like intense, but I think I want size over color. I also want a unique setting probably with white diamond baguettes.

The store in St. Thomas had a stunning ring. 2.54 fancy yellow radiant cut (but it appeared more rectangular, than square, which I liked) with 8 radiant cut stones, set to look like baguettes. And for the clarity are those ratings the same as in white diamonds?

For the best value-am I better off finding a great single stone first, then have a setting made, or look for it all put together? Are there any(independent) pricing guides?

The ring in St Thomas was 15,500. And that was before we got to talking serious money. That is about the size I want, and we saw many after that that were over 3 cts, but looked smaller due to the cut. If I email this store, what other facts should I get?

I just found this site and it looks like it will be very helpful!

 

[kroshka]

Hi MarciaB,

There are diamonds with yellow tinges that are considered low colored whites. If you are looking to buy a fancy yellow diamond with a true discernable yellow color, then it would be best to get one that is GIA certified - that way you know exactly what the diamonds specifications (i.e. natural vs. treated for color). There are other labs that certify fancy colored diamonds like EGL, HRD, and IGI, but GIA is considered in the industry the most consistent, accurate, and renowned for grading fancy colored diamonds.

According to GIA, fancies are graded with "faint, very light, light, fancy light, fancy, fancy intense, fancy deep, fancy vivid and fancy dark". These are used to describe the saturation of color for a fancy colored diamond. The more valued color fancies will be fancy, fancy intense, and fancy vivid.

For fancies, there are also possible modifying colors. More commonly and specifically with yellows, brown, green, and orange could be modifying colors. So, for example, a fancy intense brownish yellow would not be as desireable as a straight fancy intense yellow. The brown modifier often lowers the price of a fancy colored diamond. Modifying colors are always listed before the predominant color when classifying color.

In my opinion, it would be best to get the stone first and then have it checked by a qualified appraiser to make sure you aren't paying too much, that it matches it's certificate, and also for any problems that you may have when trying to have the stone set (i.e. if the stone had a feather that breaks the surface, if the girdle is too thin, etc.). Also, it is much easier for an appraiser to examine the stone loose, than if it is already set in a mounting.

As far as pricing guides, I'd recommend doing searches on fancy yellow diamonds on the internet. Compare prices with different vendors. I don't think there is a rap sheet for fancy color diamonds, but since yellows have become quite popular and are more common, many vendors have some available.

Here is a list of online vendors (that I am in no way affiliated with), but seem to have a nice selection of yellows:

http://www.scheinerdiamonds.com
http://www.diamondsbylauren.com
http://www.icestore.com

I also recommend that you do your own search and see what you find.

Hope this is helpful and useful info for you.

kroshka

 

[DavidEmslie]

Depends if you want to go natural or not, there are some beautiful natural canary stones out there, and some beautiful irradiated stones as well. For a stone that large and in that price range you can do a lot of hunting, The best advise I can give is this.
Find a stone with the color you like best, dont base it on price, base it on your personal preference of what you think is pretty

that way you cant go wrong. In the yellow color range alot of the comparisons are apples to oranges. And prices are all over the map. Go with your best feeling toward a stone/dealer ect.

 

[elmo]

I think you're getting some good advice here, Marcia. I've been shopping for yellows too and this lines up with my experience.

I don't think I'd go for a synthetic at this point though - especially for a straight fancy yellow there's just not enough price difference in my mind. If you had your heart set on a 1-2 carat nicely cut vivid and didn't want to spend the big bucks it might be another story.

David is right when he says to look at things in person and that prices can be all over the place. I've seen reasonably nice 2 carat FY stones (shape other than radiant) both close to $4k as well as close to $8k per carat. Often there's a quality difference associated with the price but sometimes there isn't

. The problem is finding folks who stock a reasonable number of things to look at. Even though straight FY isn't really rare (sellers will try to tell you otherwise), it's a sort of specialty item so you don't see them around that much.

Assuming it was a GIA graded fancy yellow and not fancy light, $15k for a 2.5 carat ring with side stones sounds like a pretty good starting price if the stone didn't have any real problems.

Yes in response to your question clarity is graded the same way for fancy colors as it is for colorless stones. Folks will tell you that color is the primary determining factor for quality and price, but I would argue as a consumer that unless I was looking for intense or vivid, I pay attention to clarity and to some extent cut just like I would for a colorless stone. I haven't seen many extremely well cut fancy color stones, but you don't have to take for instance "extremely thick" girdles with really strange depth/table combinations, even though such stones can sometimes be attractive.

There are two kinds of GIA reports that you might see - a color / origin ident report with no clarity and cut info, and a full report that's like the report you see for colorless goods that also has a color grade. For anything in this size I'd insist on the full report, otherwise I think they're trying to avoid disclosing something relevant to making a decision. In smaller items (up to a half carat or maybe below a carat depending on price) the additional cost of the full report can't be justified so it's normal to see color ident reports only.

Good luck! Let me know if you find any nice sources as I'm still looking.