Blue Nile Signature Asscher and Emerald, Whaaaa?

[GirlyGirl]

I know nothing about emeralds ans asschers, but I do know how difficult it is to pick a good one. I've read your threads, and wow, picking good ones is an art. Now I am wondering how BN chooses its signature ideals.

http://www.bluenile.com/diamonds/signature-ideal-diamonds

What do you think?

 

[Gypsy]

Need pics of actual stone and, also, your link doesn't work. try James Allen as they have pics of the actual diamonds.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Ditto to Gypsy. "Signature" means just about nothing when the images of the stones and ASETS (in the case of fancy cuts) are not provided.

 

[milton333]

The link doesn't work for me, either.

The Signature stones do have a GCAL report with actual magnified images of the stone. For asscher purposes, at least you can evaluate the windmills somewhat. However, I notice that all of the stones seem to have "excellent" results from the GCAL "optical brilliance" report. Some of these claim to have absolutely no areas of light leakage, which is just not possible. Also, even ones that seem to show a lot of blue on the picture, apparently indicating leakage, are termed excellent. And the leakage doesn't seem to correspond to the faceting, and/or is showing a tilted stone. This is just not a reliable analysis of light performance.

 

[milton333]

Just for example, here's an example of one of the BN signatures that I think is an iffy asscher. The light leakage identified on the GCAL image doesn't make sense to me.



This is a modified asscher that has been graded ideal for light performance by AGS. This is an ASET image.



Red is light returned to you, blue is obstructed (good for contrast & scintillation, this is what produces "arrows" in RBs, it should be balanced with the red). Green is indirect, reflected light. Pale areas are leakage.

An asscher is a fancy cut that shows a complex pattern of bright light, contrast, and some leakage. The info provided by BN just doesn't seem to accurately represent the kind of light performance you'd actually get from an asscher. The image seems to suggest that you'd be getting brilliant light return from nearly all facets all the time, and that's just not possible. Those images seem confusing and useless to me.