affguy
Shiny_Rock
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2011
- Messages
- 119
While I'm not quite ready yet to buy the stone I want for my wedding ring, I'm enjoying the process of searching for it through the PS tool and others (specifically like those that allow searching on L/W ratio). It's pretty obvious on the PS search tool where virtual inventory is being listed, as the same exact stone will pop up for several vendors, sometimes with widely varying prices. One vendor in particular seems to consistently run 10 or more percent below the others, presumably they make this up through some combination of higher volume and lesser service. I currently have two "virtual" stones that I'm pretty interested in, and I'm wondering how, once I have a third picked out and couple more bucks in savings, I'd go about comparing them. I'm looking at emerald cuts, so there really needs to be an eyeball evaluation rather than simple number crunching. Is it possible to have vendors ship 3 such stones to a local GIA-certified gemologist for me to pick from? Or would I be stuck picking the most expensive vendor on the basis that they're the only ones who would call all three stones in and give me pictures and/or have them evaluated by an in-house gemologist?