Brian Gavin cut on the cheap?

[teobdl]

There have been a few posts regarding recutting, and I'm wondering why savvy customers don't do more of the following:

1. Buy a "good" cut diamond on the cheap--for example GIA good 1.7 ct I VS1 for less than $13,000
2. Ask Brian Gavin to recut for a few hundred dollars, which would probably result in AGS 000 1.5 ct I VS1, (normal retail for over $15,000).

Obviously, this would take some advance planning and maybe discussions about what proportions pre-recut yield highest carat post-recut. Also, one would probably never do this with anything lower than VS2, and there would be certain inclusions that one would never accept (e.g. feather or crystal near any surface). Brian Gavin (or whoever the recutter is) would also have to accept the stone.

But overall, I think many of veteran PSers could make some smart choices. Any thoughts on why this isn't common on PS?

 

[AprilBaby]

Maybe the risk involved in cracking such a valuable stone in cutting?

 

[peacechick]

Technically, it could be done but is n expensive gamble. How much would you save?

Recutting seems more frequent on the CS board but that's because there's so many factors involved in colored stones, and color comes first, so people don't mind losing some carat weight if it's the right color and price. With diamonds though, there are calculators and cheat sheets to help you find exactly what you want, so why not get it right from the start?

 

[TC1987]

Because a recut is a little like a box of chocolates: You never know exactly what you will get. The properties of the minor facets as well as the angles, table, depth, etc. affect the look of the diamond. Unless you know exactly what you want it recut to, and are willing to sacrifice all of the carat weight to get it, and you can find a cutter who is willing to exactly recreate that branded look, it's not going to give you a BG Signature stone. And perhaps BG won't cut recut outside stones to BG specs for customers, too. It wouldn't be good business to cannibalize your sales or devalue the your branded product line by selling it for $350 /ct. It's a lot easier and faster and also a sure bet to choose your diamond from several ready-cut superideals that you can inspect in person and choose the variant that looks best to you.

 

[Dreamer_D]

Most commercially available diamonds won't have the proportions to cut the stone to better specs without undesirable carat loss.

The only way the scenario you describe would work out in the consumer's favour is if you buy the diamond on the secondary market for a very good price. And there are a lot of "ifs" in that process, more than most people are willing to accept.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Brian will not guarantee the diamond will end up as AGS 000. Plus, you have to buy a larger stone to cut so the finished weight will be less as Dreamer just said. I did a recut but it was to a family diamond and I didn't have it graded since I would never be selling the stone. But I would not buy a stone with the intention of recutting unless I came across a diamond costing a fraction of what it was worth.

 

[teobdl]

I think you all have great points. But just to respond...

Most commercially available diamonds won't have the proportions to cut the stone to better specs without undesirable carat loss.

Most probably aren't good candidates, but a few probably are. For example, [URL='https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/my-brian-gavin-re-cut-diamond-before-and-after.168121/']https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/my-brian-gavin-re-cut-diamond-before-and-after.168121/[/URL] that stone had pretty common junker proportions--steep deep with a huge table. She ended up with a gorgeous stone only slightly smaller than before.

The reason I started this thread is that I haven't seen one thread on PS about someone being unhappy about a BG recut, including how much weight BG took off. This makes me think that as long as someone does their homework, they're probably going to end up with around a GIA XXX (yeah, I agree that AGS 000 is probably asking too much) and save a few grand in the end.

As far as risking a diamond cracking during the recut, I would guess that BG's crack rate is much __________
Re: "you never know what you're going to get" and only recutting diamonds that are a small fraction of the price

I think of it this way: a guy has an excellent tailor. He buys a suit that he knows doesn't fit him quite right for a good price, but he's confident his tailor can work with it. So he buys it, and he comes out with something spectacular. Maybe not his absolute best suit, but it's still fantastic, and he ends up with a 10-20% discount on what he would have paid otherwise.

Does it make sense to only do this with a free suit or a suit he got for $300 after tailoring? What about a suit he got for $800 after tailoring, ending up with one he would have paid $1000 for?

Now what if those savings were in the thousands?

 

[Dreamer_D]

Sure, it seems so easy! But you are proposing a plan to "game the system". The system is very smart Diamond cutters spend ages planning the best use of rough to maximize dollar return. So anything available on the primary market has been cut to the proportions that maximize dollar return. If the rough could have been cut to yield a higher value, it would have been. Therefore, the odds of finding a diamond on the retail primary market that you can buy for less than the diamond would be worth after the recut is very very low.

One exception would be to buy a typical GIA Ex and teak it to a super-ideal H&A. The increase in market value from GIA Ex to super-ideal H&A is relatively small, and carat loss cutting to an H&A is not worth it most of the time. So most cutters won't go that extra mile. But if you wanted a premium H&A its possible you would save a few pennies if you were willing to sacrifice carat weight. It would not be what you assume, though, in my opinion.

These factors and the utter brilliance (pun intended) of the money-making machine that is the diamond industry are why most recuts on PS are of old family stones or diamonds owned a very long time. The recut likely decreased the value of the stone relative the current market prices of the before and after diamonds. ETA: The example you linked was a family stone bought 11 years ago that yielded a stone under 1ct from a 1ct rough. Likely, while more beautiful, the cost in todays dollars of the before stone was higher than the after.

Your plan might succeed if you buy on the secondary market. But that is a risky approach in itself. You need to learn a lot about diamonds and the secondary market to dip your toe into that pool. I have bought a lot on the secondary market and considered finding a diamond for a recut that way. But as you see, I have spent a long time on PS and also spent a long time learning about the secondary market. If you devote that time, your plan might work.

But like anything in life -- if you think of a master plan that seems to obvious and wonder why no one else is doing it... well usually it means there are problems with the plan.

 

[Karl_K]

If a gia good/poor cut diamond is still on the market you can pretty much bet that someone somewhere has already evaluated the potential to recut to gia x/ags0 or even gia VG.
They know a lot more about it than you do and can get a much better starting price.

 

[teobdl]

Hoo hah! Thank you for your frank contributions. Just to clarify, I was just entertaining the thought. I have neither the time nor the capital to do this; and if I had both, diamonds would be among the last of my purchases.

 

[TC1987]

My point about not knowing what you'll get is in the nuances of the diamond. You can line up 6 superideal cuts and still prefer the personality of one or two of those diamonds better than the others. And you might not know that unless you see them all lined up together. Or you might buy one diamond without comparing to others and still think it looks bland or lacks bold contrasts or something. That's my point: Minor facets matter.

With the suit, tailor can fit it by trial and error: Take in, let out, change. You recut a diamond, and all you can do plan well, measure once, cut once or else you have to keep taking off more and more until you get right. But your diamond will be smaller. No putting diamond dust back onto the diamond.

 

[peacechick]

I think instead of the tailor analogy, a better one is plastic surgery. You could get an excellent surgeon, he could show you all the before and after pictures on his computer, precisely mapped out.

But it is essentially an irreversible procedure that changes a face for good. What on paper seems "ideal" doesn't always turn out that way. I always think of Heidi Montag as an example. A successful operation but all liveliness lost from that face.