Comparing Apples to Apples

[Reflexion]

Hello everyone. I''ve been lurking around for a while reading everything in sight, but I''m about ready to buy a ring for my girlfriend so I thought it would be a great time to start posting.

I think I''ve nailed down the basic 4 C''s (diamond kindergarten). I''ve also read (and reread... wow that''s a lot to remember) the advanced info on Price Scope and the "Ultimate Diamond Grading System" information on GOG. So now, I think I''m somewhat better prepared to make an educated purchase.

I did some window shopping at a few B&M''s and diamond exchanges just to see what''s available. Of course, they all pitched their "Ideal Cut" diamonds with GIA certs and gave me some decent price quotes. Knowing what I know (thanks to PriceScope and GOG), I took their offers with a grain of salt. Then, I went to visit a reputable H&A shop (3 hours away) to see what all the hype was about. When I got there I was floored. They spent 2 hours showing me the difference between an H&A and non-H&A (in various light conditions). After spending those 2 hours comparing the 2 diamonds with my own eyes, I was convinced that there was more to H&A than high numbers, cool looking red star thingies, and pretty graphs.

Here''s the problem. The price difference between the B&M "Ideal Cut" and the H&A was $4k+ with 3 of the 4C''s consistent. Taking basic algebra into account (yuk!), I concluded that I was paying $4k extra for magnificient cut quality if the other 3 variables (ct, color, & clarity) were the same. Remembering how beautiful the H&A was compared to the "poopie diamond" (as it was so eloquently called), I convinced myself that the better cut quality was worth the $4k.

Then... I took a look at price scope and I was floored again (look at chart below). I searched for all 1.51ct VS1 G diamonds in the first 4 AGA tiers. Then I threw them in a spreadsheet to compare the differences. Notice how most of the 1As were at the bottom while the 2Bs are spread throughout the price range. Also notice how the H&As were NOT the most expensive. If you look at the numbers, higher cut quality does NOT mean higher prices.

If this is the case, why am I spending an extra 4k? Customer service? Shop owner''s kid''s college fund? Someone please bail me out of this one. I love the H&A diamond, but I need more justification on spending the extra money.

Thanks for all your help.

 

[Mara]

I don't think you can rely just on the AGA cut grading chart to tell you how that diamond is going to perform. Just like you can't rely on just table, just HCA score, just depth, just angles. It all goes together in one nice pretty sparkly package.




I wouldn't necessarily buy alot of those so called AGA 1A stones at the bottom. I don't like their depth. I don't like VG VG vs EX. Some of the 2A have better numbers. But what about IdealScope images? I'd be interested if you could get a few of those, spread across the 1A's at the bottom, some 2A's and then the H&A's. See which one has more light leakage. You never know. The 2A could look better than the 1A and H&A or vice versa. You can't just take ONE piece of data and call it absolute.




By the way, I don't know if you know this but some of the stones in your chart are the SAME STONE. If you pulled that info from the virtual search engine on Pscope, many of the vendors sell the same stone virtually, like some of those bottom 1A stones are the same, as well as a few of the 2A ones you listed.




This is similar to some of the stones that WF has in their expert selection. AGS1 and AGS2 stone with eye popping IdealScope images and HCA scores of under 2.0. Really nice stuff.




So I appreciate what you are saying but don't think it's as cut and dry as you noted. Continue to flesh out your research. Check out a few of WF's expert selection stones with not quite so ideal #'s or similar but eye popping IS images, they may amaze you!! A stone doesnt HAVE to be H&A to be great...it can be an almost H&A with great #'s, nice images, great HCA score and be a better value.

 

[oldminer]

The 1B's at the highest price are AGS lab graded and probably meet all the 1B standards. They may even be 1A after my upcoming minor revisions come out in a few weeks.

The lowest price, surprising 1A's, are GIA graded diamonds that likely do not meet the 1A standards in full. With GIA reports only you don't have enough data to fully create a 1A overall grade. I would bet a nickel that something is a little off in their total 1A grade and that they are 1B or even possibly 2A grade stones.

Diamonds are not sold only be cut quality if everything else is the same. Each one is an individual and not really comparable as one apple is to another. On price alone, there is a huge difference among each diamond that is not a shared attribute with comparisons with apples. It may make a tempting anaolgy, but there are market forces in diamonds that do not work in the apple biz.

While you cannot totally know how nice a diamond is by "the numbers" you can pretty much take a 1A or 1B grade to the bank on how well any one of them in a round brilliant will perform. At least "very nicely" if not superfine. The differences may not be apparent to you at all. At that point, price does enter into the decision process. I think you are just about ready to make the purchase.

 

[valeria101]

Yeah.. it teh AGA charts and H&A are two different anymals.

The H&A search engine at GOG and the one on PS, and the selected ideals on different other sites (Abazias, Niceice...) will give a representative list of stones which passed the H&A threshold for cut quality with some degree of success.

 

[Hest88]

Dave alluded to what I would posit: that the extra $4K in your local store could be due to things that have nothing to do with quality. It could be a branded stone with a higher mark-up. Or the store could have chosen to market it like a branded stone and subsequently marked it up that much.

 

[Thegroom]

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Then, I went to visit a reputable H&A shop (3 hours away) to see what all the hype was about. When I got there I was floored. They spent 2 hours showing me the difference between an H&A and non-H&A (in various light conditions). After spending those 2 hours comparing the 2 diamonds with my own eyes, I was convinced that there was more to H&A than high numbers, cool looking red star thingies, and pretty graphs.
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You state that you noticed A HUGE difference between the H&A and non-H&A stones. Is it possible that this store, in an effort to push the H&A stones due to the higher price, were being a little unfair in the stones they were comparing? There are many stones that are AGS000, have excellent polish and symmetry, but aren't officially H&A because one thing or another doesn't line up perfectly, but they don't carry the H&A price premium. I think that if the store you went to were comparing something like this next to their H&A, you might be hard pressed to see a difference. My point is that it's possible that they specifically chose lesser cut stones to compare to the H&A to push you towards the higher priced H&A.

 

[pqcollectibles]

Rhino has often said, when people take the "Pepsi Challenge" in his store, they pick the H&A. I did the same thing in a local B&M when I was shopping last spring. They showed me an H&A and an Ideal cut several times with different pairs. I picked the H&A every time but once. Since I was overwhelmed at the time, I didn't get the specs of the one Ideal I chose and the H&A I did not. Now, I would be interested to know the crown/pavillion angles combos, and other information that contributed to that particular decision.

I would be interested to know, Reflexion,.... Did the shop tell you which stone was which?? Hopefully, you were choosing blindly based on what appealed to your eye. In that case, it was the diamonds' performances and not sales tactics that lead you to your conclusions.

 

[Reflexion]

Thanks for all the great feedback.

I understand that you can't judge a diamond solely on its numbers. I was just surprised to see such a deviation between cut vs. price. Unfortunately, more often than not, numbers are all I have to base any comparison. This brings me to my dilemma... How am I supposed to know if the price of my diamond is reasonable if I don't have anything to compare it to? I'm 100% sure that this diamond is top quality, but I'm not so sure that I'm getting the best price for it.

As for the "Pepsi Challenge". Yes, I took something similar and I blindly picked the H&A diamond, but I'll be the first to admit that it wasn't completely unbiased. The H&A was the larger diamond IIRC and the lesser diamond was very low in cut quality (g/vg I think). It was closer to a Pepsi vs. Shasta challenge rather than Pepsi vs. Coke.

I plan on going back to see if I could retake the Pepsi Challenge with diamonds of closer specs. More specifically, I'd love to see the results of isee2, fscope, bscope, etc. on a run of the mill B&M vg/vg.

Thanks again for your time.

 

[valeria101]

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On 3/12/2004 11:42:50 PM Reflexion wrote:



I'd love to see the results of isee2, fscope, bscope, etc. on a run of the mill B&M vg/vg.

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Someone did think of this... you may want to check this line up (WWW ). While you may still wander what is compared with what, there is plenty of data about these diamonds to give you an idea just about how important a certain variation of parameters is. These models will always be a step from actually seing the stuff... but you could, I guess, get an image of what to look for in the shop !