Hi All,
Just wanted to throw in my two-cents. I have been on the market for a diamond for a few months and in that period have seen dozens of stones in both B&M stores and via independent appraisers. This was a painful process but for the fact that I stumbled across Infinity Diamonds: http://www.infinitydiamonds.be
I can categorically say that every stone that these guys produce exceeds every other stone that I came across in my search in terms of all round beauty. At risk of sounding like an advert for Infinity, I can not emphasize strongly enough: do not buy your diamond until you have at least seen one of Paul’s Crafted By Infinity diamonds. Wink and others can arrange for you to see them. What is the downside? The upside is having one of the most beautiful stones on the planet.
During my research with Wink and Paul, I had a few ‘ah-ha’ moments as a consumer interested in scaling the learning curve as quickly as possible. I hope you don’t mind me sharing:
• Cut is by far the most important of the characteristics of a diamond. I originally wanted to go with a stone that was flawless but after looking at different stones under the loupe you get nothing more for your money by going IF over VS2. You may feel better about yourself but no one is going to know.
I also thought that size was king and I had expected to see huge differences between 1.5, 1.6, 1.7c diamonds. This is not the case. At arms length, and with a set moving diamond, you won’t be able to tell the difference, at least I wasn’t.
Now color is a tricky one. I really refused to budge from D-F for ages until I saw Paul’s stones. When the cut is non-ideal, especially in Princess stones, the color was really easy to identify. With Infinity’s super-ideal cut, face-up diamonds are neigh-on impossible to tell an F from a G and a G from an H.
Finally, the biggest insight on this front was the cut itself. I saw two 1c stones side-by-side; one was well cut and the other poorly cut. The light leakage that the poorly cut diamond had, at arms length, made that stone look 0.5c smaller!! This is much more important than you killing yourself on whether you can afford to go up 0.1 or 0.2c in weight.
• When you are in a store or at an appraiser, make sure to look at the stones in lots of different lighting conditions. I saw many stones that were beautiful under bright lighting but crawl under the desk and you will see that light and beauty leak away. Better to do this before you give that diamond to your fiancé in dim lighting conditions!! The Infinity RBs that I saw were all beautiful as can be expected under bright conditions, but in my dark corner, it was just amazing to see the brightness shine right to the very edge.
• The market doesn’t seem to charge anything for exactly square Princesses over those that are not square. For me, however, I would pay more to have an exactly square Princess as I love that symmetry – surely something that is inherent with the very idea of cutting diamonds. If you want a source of exactly square diamonds, I needn’t tell you where you need to look!!! All I can say, is that these guys should be charging more.
• H&A may mean a really well-cut stone but this alone does not guarantee great light performance. I only researched H&A stones and the variation between the performances is unimaginably large. The particular dimensions of the facets in combination with the H&A pattern is what is important. Do not just assume that buying an H&A means you will have an amazing stone.
• There are lots of Brands kicking around and I was and still am skeptical about their value to consumers. What are you really buying? Are you just falling into a marketing trap? I even thought this may have been the case with Infinity diamonds as well until I saw a whole range of RBs and Princesses. The thing that you get with their brand is unbelievable consistency across every stone that they produce – and they publish immense amount of data on each as well. Ask Wink, but I would never ever ever ever buy a $$$ stone without seeing it first. This involved shipping stones to and from my appraiser and me having to take time out to check ‘em over. Hand on heart, I am now comfortable buying any Infinity cut stone sight-unseen. That is the value of their brand to the consumer; extremely high quality control.
• Infinity, via their dealers, offer a trade-up policy. If you ever want to upgrade to a larger stone, they will buy back the original. Think about how valuable that is to you. That option value may just save your life and your wallet.
• People talk about buying over the internet and that being a really risky thing to do as well as being very unromantic. Hmm… my experience was not so. I spoke extensively to Wink by phone garnering his brilliant expertise and then was fortunate enough to meet Paul, a true genius in the business. Buying my Infinity stone was one of the lowest-risk purchases of my life… as long as she says yes!!!
Sorry for the long ramble but I thought my experiences may help others just as Pricescope really helped me find Wink, Paul and my perfect diamond.
Ciao
Just wanted to throw in my two-cents. I have been on the market for a diamond for a few months and in that period have seen dozens of stones in both B&M stores and via independent appraisers. This was a painful process but for the fact that I stumbled across Infinity Diamonds: http://www.infinitydiamonds.be
I can categorically say that every stone that these guys produce exceeds every other stone that I came across in my search in terms of all round beauty. At risk of sounding like an advert for Infinity, I can not emphasize strongly enough: do not buy your diamond until you have at least seen one of Paul’s Crafted By Infinity diamonds. Wink and others can arrange for you to see them. What is the downside? The upside is having one of the most beautiful stones on the planet.
During my research with Wink and Paul, I had a few ‘ah-ha’ moments as a consumer interested in scaling the learning curve as quickly as possible. I hope you don’t mind me sharing:
• Cut is by far the most important of the characteristics of a diamond. I originally wanted to go with a stone that was flawless but after looking at different stones under the loupe you get nothing more for your money by going IF over VS2. You may feel better about yourself but no one is going to know.
I also thought that size was king and I had expected to see huge differences between 1.5, 1.6, 1.7c diamonds. This is not the case. At arms length, and with a set moving diamond, you won’t be able to tell the difference, at least I wasn’t.
Now color is a tricky one. I really refused to budge from D-F for ages until I saw Paul’s stones. When the cut is non-ideal, especially in Princess stones, the color was really easy to identify. With Infinity’s super-ideal cut, face-up diamonds are neigh-on impossible to tell an F from a G and a G from an H.
Finally, the biggest insight on this front was the cut itself. I saw two 1c stones side-by-side; one was well cut and the other poorly cut. The light leakage that the poorly cut diamond had, at arms length, made that stone look 0.5c smaller!! This is much more important than you killing yourself on whether you can afford to go up 0.1 or 0.2c in weight.
• When you are in a store or at an appraiser, make sure to look at the stones in lots of different lighting conditions. I saw many stones that were beautiful under bright lighting but crawl under the desk and you will see that light and beauty leak away. Better to do this before you give that diamond to your fiancé in dim lighting conditions!! The Infinity RBs that I saw were all beautiful as can be expected under bright conditions, but in my dark corner, it was just amazing to see the brightness shine right to the very edge.
• The market doesn’t seem to charge anything for exactly square Princesses over those that are not square. For me, however, I would pay more to have an exactly square Princess as I love that symmetry – surely something that is inherent with the very idea of cutting diamonds. If you want a source of exactly square diamonds, I needn’t tell you where you need to look!!! All I can say, is that these guys should be charging more.
• H&A may mean a really well-cut stone but this alone does not guarantee great light performance. I only researched H&A stones and the variation between the performances is unimaginably large. The particular dimensions of the facets in combination with the H&A pattern is what is important. Do not just assume that buying an H&A means you will have an amazing stone.
• There are lots of Brands kicking around and I was and still am skeptical about their value to consumers. What are you really buying? Are you just falling into a marketing trap? I even thought this may have been the case with Infinity diamonds as well until I saw a whole range of RBs and Princesses. The thing that you get with their brand is unbelievable consistency across every stone that they produce – and they publish immense amount of data on each as well. Ask Wink, but I would never ever ever ever buy a $$$ stone without seeing it first. This involved shipping stones to and from my appraiser and me having to take time out to check ‘em over. Hand on heart, I am now comfortable buying any Infinity cut stone sight-unseen. That is the value of their brand to the consumer; extremely high quality control.
• Infinity, via their dealers, offer a trade-up policy. If you ever want to upgrade to a larger stone, they will buy back the original. Think about how valuable that is to you. That option value may just save your life and your wallet.
• People talk about buying over the internet and that being a really risky thing to do as well as being very unromantic. Hmm… my experience was not so. I spoke extensively to Wink by phone garnering his brilliant expertise and then was fortunate enough to meet Paul, a true genius in the business. Buying my Infinity stone was one of the lowest-risk purchases of my life… as long as she says yes!!!
Sorry for the long ramble but I thought my experiences may help others just as Pricescope really helped me find Wink, Paul and my perfect diamond.
Ciao
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