Dealing with a dealer

[aliza3]

The same dealer who posted the E 1.5 stone that you said had horrible proportions is getting kind of fed up with me. He tells me he sells stones and not the paper. He has been doing this for many years and is a family friend. I know many people that have bought from him who love their stones. Every time he gives me a GIA report I look it up in the HCA and it is not always perfect (as you saw before). My boyfriend wants me to just trust him that he will sell us a good stone because we keep going back and forth with him. Are my standard too high? Is it true that he could find us a nice stone that did not far so well in the HCA? or that isn't triple excellent cut? I am just having a hard time with all of this and am not sure whether to give him the reins and just trust him to find us something we will love. The main problem is we are in different states so every time he finds us something we cannot just go see it, but decide if we want it by doing research online. If we saw it and thought it looked beautiful we wouldn't really care about most of its proportions. What should I do?

 

[krisjon]

Most of the market thrives on customers not knowing much about diamonds. No one here is suggesting you strictly buy off the paper, but numbers/proportions don't lie. Quality is quality and the people here will always try to steer you towards the very best for your money. Nothing against your jeweler friend, but his attitude/approach is pretty typical when facing a more educated consumer base.

 

[AprilBaby]

Stick with your guns and get the best stone. He apparently isn't a very good dealer if he can't get you what you want. Why settle for meh when you can get the best just because he doesn't care about the paper. The paper is VERY important to show what you paid for is what you got.
Ask him why he can't find you an AGS 000 stone?

 

[aliza3]

It is just hard because some of the stones he gives me you guys tell me are great and others are not so I feel like I cannot just trust him 100%. But I have to use him because we are very close family friends and at this point it would just be awkward. He can definitely find something I like I just think it will take awhile and he is kind of annoyed at me. At this point I am really just considering trusting him even if the stones don't rate so well on HCA.

 

[kenny]

We hear it all the time but, "Buy the stone, not the paper" is soooo ignorant.

The paper (grading report from credible lab) describes the stone which supports the price.





I wish I sold diamonds and all my customers never asked for that worthless paper.
I could sell them H SI1s for the price of D IFs.

 

[aliza3]

He is not charging us wrong though, he just doesn't understand that I am using online resources to check his work. He is older and has been selling diamonds before the internet.

 

[ame]

Actually you don't "HAVE TO USE HIM." You can make a choice not to because it's making you both uncomfortable. Clearly he's not 100% trustworthy, and clearly he doesn't have YOUR best interests in mind, because if he did, this wouldn't be stressful and so uncomfortable. I say cut your losses and move on.

 

[aliza3]

So besides getting a triple excellent cut (which he can easily get for me), you recommend sticking strong to getting diamonds with good HCA scores/certain proportions? And not just letting him tell me what is good? Thats the real issue at hand

 

[Evilsports]

Paper covers rock.

I thought we all knew this from childhood?

 

[Evilsports]

I think you would possibly be better off under the tutelage of the senior members here.

I ordered a diamond for a decent amount of money, without ever laying eyes on it. This was based on a trust of the members here and education that I was able to glean from the experience of other Pricescope members.

People here have seen situations like yours and mine hundreds of times. They will point you towards the lowest risk, best diamond for your money. At the end of the day I felt like I owed myself and my wife to be that degree of respect.

You don't owe your family friend a thing. Business is business, and this is first and foremost a business decision.

 

[yssie]

1. Take Gypsy's advice (she has suggested this to you twice now):

Please stop posting multiple threads.

You can ask successive questions on one thread and we will read and answer.

I am trying to catch up on your prior finds and the repetition and re-posting of the same question as a new thread is really annoying. Make things as easy as possible for the people trying to help you and keep everything in one place.

I'm replying in this thread because this made me

Paper covers rock.

I thought we all knew this from childhood?

2. This is a disaster:

ROUND BRILLIANT
Measurements 7.36 - 7.41 x 4.30 mm
Carat Weight 1.50 carat
Color Grade E
Clarity Grade SI1
Cut Grade Good

PROPORTIONS
Depth 58.2 %
Table 64 %
Crown Angle 33.5°
Crown Height 12.0%
Pavilion Angle 39.6°
Pavilion Depth 41.0%
Star Length 60%
Lower Half 80%
Girdle Thick, Faceted, 5.0%
Culet Very Small

FINISH
Polish Good
Symmetry Good

FLUORESCENCE
Fluorescence None

CLARITY CHARACTERISTICS
Clarity Characteristics Needle, Crystal, Feather, Natural

COMMENTS
Internal graining is not shown.
Surface graining is not shown.

He is charging me $10,500.


3. This is promising:

It costs $8,000 - 9,500. All advice and opinions welcome!

ROUND BRILLIANT
Measurements 7.11 - 7.14 x 4.32 mm
Carat Weight 1.33 carat
Color Grade G
Clarity Grade SI1
Cut Grade Excellent

PROPORTIONS
Depth 60.6 %
Table 59 %
Crown Angle 33.5°
Crown Height 14.0%
Pavilion Angle 41.0°
Pavilion Depth 43.5%
Star Length 50%
Lower Half 80%
Girdle Medium to Slightly Thick, Faceted, 3.5%
Culet None

FINISH
Polish Excellent
Symmetry Excellent

FLUORESCENCE
Fluorescence Faint

CLARITY CHARACTERISTICS
Clarity Characteristics Cloud, Crystal, Needle


4. What's the problem with the 1.33 G SI1 above? It got Gypsy's okay two days ago.

So besides getting a triple excellent cut (which he can easily get for me), you recommend sticking strong to getting diamonds with good HCA scores/certain proportions? And not just letting him tell me what is good? Thats the real issue at hand

I certainly shop that way... but then, I only shop with vendors who share my priorities. Whether or not you "stick strong" depends entirely on what you value most - getting a beautifully cut stone, getting the biggest stone possible, getting the whitest stone possible, annoying your jeweller as little as possible...
It's exactly as much of an issue as you choose to make it.

 

[Maisie]

I agree with Ame. Find another vendor. You aren't doing this person a favour by buying from him. Its your engagement ring. You surely want the best you can buy for your budget?

 

[ame]

And did you say above that you're not even in the same place he is? Decision made! You owe this guy nothing. He's certainly not respecting any sort of family/friendly relationship in what he's doing with and for you, especially not by sharing his aggravation. All he's doing is looking after his own bottom line.

Move on, let us help you spend your money wisely.

 

[aliza3]

The only problem with the 1.33 G is that we raised out budget to 12,000 and for that amount we feel that we can get a bigger and even a better color stone (a 1.5 G or a 1.4 F, or maybe even E).

 

[aliza3]

Ya I agree with you guys. My boyfriend just feels like we have gone this far with him and "annoyed" him that we have to buy from him now. He will also definitely be invited to the wedding and we both don't like confrontation. Also, the way things are done in my community is through word of mouth and friends. No one buys a diamond from a store, every one gets a diamond from a wholesale dealer, usually others in our community. SO even if I didn't want to use him, I would be using someone else in the community, who would also not be in the state I am in. That isn't really the issue since I am okay driving out to see the stones.

I just wanted to know if he is being unreasonable or if I am. I just don't feel like I can buy something this expensive without doing any research/knowing what I am getting myself into, which seems at times too picky to him since I am particular.

We are at the point where I am either telling him we trust whatever he finds or giving him specific dimensions for stones we want (Which he can hopefully find in our price range- but thats another issue. He said its hard to find what we want, yet when I search diamonds here I find like 20 I would consider buying).

 

[yssie]

Ya I agree with you guys. My boyfriend just feels like we have gone this far with him and "annoyed" him that we have to buy from him now. He will also definitely be invited to the wedding and we both don't like confrontation. Also, the way things are done in my community is through word of mouth and friends. No one buys a diamond from a store, every one gets a diamond from a wholesale dealer, usually others in our community. SO even if I didn't want to use him, I would be using someone else in the community, who would also not be in the state I am in. That isn't really the issue since I am okay driving out to see the stones.

I just wanted to know if he is being unreasonable or if I am. I just don't feel like I can buy something this expensive without doing any research/knowing what I am getting myself into, which seems at times too picky to him since I am particular.

We are at the point where I am either telling him we trust whatever he finds or giving him specific dimensions for stones we want (Which he can hopefully find in our price range- but thats another issue. He said its hard to find what we want, yet when I search diamonds here I find like 20 I would consider buying).

There is absolutely nothing we, the PS community, can say that will tell you what to do in this situation or make you feel more comfortable with actually doing it. It really is as simple as deciding what you want and pursuing it. Jewellers with storefronts have higher costs than vendors who operate strictly online, so you can expect higher prices, but you should also expect excellent customer service... and making you feel that you're becoming a burden or an annoyance doesn't seem like excellent customer service to me, but if you're dead set on following the diamond-buying ways of your community then you have two options: force the community to upgrade their ways of thinking, or adjust your expectations so that they're in-line with the current expectations of the rest of your community.

 

[ame]

Ya I agree with you guys. My boyfriend just feels like we have gone this far with him and "annoyed" him that we have to buy from him now. He will also definitely be invited to the wedding and we both don't like confrontation. Also, the way things are done in my community is through word of mouth and friends. No one buys a diamond from a store, every one gets a diamond from a wholesale dealer, usually others in our community. SO even if I didn't want to use him, I would be using someone else in the community, who would also not be in the state I am in. That isn't really the issue since I am okay driving out to see the stones.

I just wanted to know if he is being unreasonable or if I am. I just don't feel like I can buy something this expensive without doing any research/knowing what I am getting myself into, which seems at times too picky to him since I am particular.

We are at the point where I am either telling him we trust whatever he finds or giving him specific dimensions for stones we want (Which he can hopefully find in our price range- but thats another issue. He said its hard to find what we want, yet when I search diamonds here I find like 20 I would consider buying).

1) HE is not Wholesale. A dealer that sells to anyone other than another jeweler is NOT a wholesaler. Just so you're clear. HE is NOT a WHOLESALER. He is a RETAILER. And he's treating you like crap.

2) You owe him nothing, and you don't HAVE to buy anything from him, regardless of the amount of time and "annoyance", nor do you need to concern yourself with what he thinks if you buy elsewhere. He's certainly not concerned with whether he's annoying you or wasting your time. He can't get you what you want because he doesn't want to. He wants to make money on you and he wants to annoy you into submission, which you're about to do. Cut your losses. That avoids the confrontation, and the stress. Do you want a nice stone and beautiful ring? Good, then get it from someone that wants to give you that, because this guy IS NOT the one willing to make that happen.

3) Him being invited to your wedding is a non-issue. If he's got any level of professionalism or is in any way a decent friend of your families, he's not going to even concern himself with where you buy it if its not from him. IF he is stupid enough to give you crap at your wedding...hopefully your families and half the town witness it and he puts himself right out of business.

4) You are not being "picky" for knowing what you want and being educated. Use that education to buy it from someone who can provide you with the quality of goods you are interested in, whether it's an online vendor or one nearer to where you live so you can see what the stone looks like AND view the report that corresponds.

 

[Dee*Jay]

Ya I agree with you guys. My boyfriend just feels like we have gone this far with him and "annoyed" him that we have to buy from him now. He will also definitely be invited to the wedding and we both don't like confrontation. Also, the way things are done in my community is through word of mouth and friends. No one buys a diamond from a store, every one gets a diamond from a wholesale dealer, usually others in our community. SO even if I didn't want to use him, I would be using someone else in the community, who would also not be in the state I am in. That isn't really the issue since I am okay driving out to see the stones.

I just wanted to know if he is being unreasonable or if I am. I just don't feel like I can buy something this expensive without doing any research/knowing what I am getting myself into, which seems at times too picky to him since I am particular.

We are at the point where I am either telling him we trust whatever he finds or giving him specific dimensions for stones we want (Which he can hopefully find in our price range- but thats another issue. He said its hard to find what we want, yet when I search diamonds here I find like 20 I would consider buying).

aliza, would you rather deal with a moment of (potential) unpleasantness at your wedding (and if the guy is a class act he should not make you uncomfortable in any way--and certainly not engage in any behavior that would be confrontational--at your wedding) or would you rather look at your ring EVERY DAY and wonder if you could have gotten something "better"? Your interaction with him will be very short but jewelry is round for the long haul. Get a better stone.

 

[artdecolover71]

Personally, if I was going to stick with him- I would consider being honest. Tell him you found this great diamond education forum and you are Looking for a stone with specific parameters. If he doesn't like that then perhaps something is amiss!

 

[krisjon]

Knowledge is power and your jeweler friend is threatened by what you know now. It's an ego thing as much as it is a business thing of selling what he has - instead of getting you what you want.

 

[MarionC]

Personally, if I was going to stick with him- I would consider being honest. Tell him you found this great diamond education forum and you are Looking for a stone with specific parameters. If he doesn't like that then perhaps something is amiss!

That's the best advice I've seen so far. I had to do that with our local jeweler and even showed her that I could get the exact same diamond online for much less. She tried to meet my price but couldn't, yet we did have an open honest conversation.
Tell him exactly what you want - write it down for him. No apologies to him or anything, just matter-of-factly present the specs you want.
If he can't do that, thank him and work with the PS's here. Best of luck!

 

[Dancing Fire]

Ya I agree with you guys. My boyfriend just feels like we have gone this far with him and "annoyed" him that we have to buy from him now. He will also definitely be invited to the wedding and we both don't like confrontation. Also, the way things are done in my community is through word of mouth and friends. No one buys a diamond from a store, every one gets a diamond from a wholesale dealer, usually others in our community. SO even if I didn't want to use him, I would be using someone else in the community, who would also not be in the state I am in. That isn't really the issue since I am okay driving out to see the stones.

I just wanted to know if he is being unreasonable or if I am. I just don't feel like I can buy something this expensive without doing any research/knowing what I am getting myself into, which seems at times too picky to him since I am particular.

We are at the point where I am either telling him we trust whatever he finds or giving him specific dimensions for stones we want (Which he can hopefully find in our price range- but thats another issue. He said its hard to find what we want, yet when I search diamonds here I find like 20 I would consider buying).

1) HE is not Wholesale. A dealer that sells to anyone other than another jeweler is NOT a wholesaler. Just so you're clear. HE is NOT a WHOLESALER. He is a RETAILER. And he's treating you like crap.

Yup, This guy is feeding you a bunch of B.S.!!

 

[Dancing Fire]

The only problem with the 1.33 G is that we raised out budget to 12,000 and for that amount we feel that we can get a bigger and even a better color stone (a 1.5 G or a 1.4 F, or maybe even E).

Ask him to show you some AGS 0 cut stones...

 

[CharmyPoo]

Ask him to show you stones within these ranges and it should land you a good HCA score.

Depth: 60% - 62%
Table: 54% - 57%
Crown Angle: 34 - 35
Pavilion Angle: 40.5 - 40.9
Girdle: Avoid extremes such as thin to extremely thick

 

[Paul-Antwerp]

Aliza,

I have just read this thread, and it seems to me that the problems here are more due to differences in 'culture'. I feel what your dealer is struggling with, and him and especially his suppliers not being used to PS-requirements create the aggravation. Let me explain:

From what I read, I assume the following:
- Your dealer does largely sell memo-goods, which he calls in from his own selection of suppliers.
- His co-operation with suppliers is largely based on them giving him good info beforehand on color and clarity being correct or 'high within the grade', so that he can better defend the 'stone', as opposed to the 'paper'.
- With PS essentially being a micro-culture (specialized in cut-quality), compared to the macro world-market of diamonds where GIA-EX is the absolute top, it is logical for both dealer and his suppliers being surprised by extra cut-requirements.

Your request comes in a period of increasing scarcity of good quality stones.Last week, I posted about a wholesale-database-search I did, where I found the following:
- Checking for a specific size, color, clarity (1.00-1.19 H-SI1), I found over 700 GIA-EX-None diamonds available worldwide.
- Reducing them to specs comparable to those posted by Charmypoo (that search does not allow filtering for pavilion or crown angles), the 700 were suddenly reduced to around 70, of which only a fraction are in the US.
- For those not in the US (in India, mostly), the owners generally demand pre-payment without refund from their retailers, so I can imagine that that practice does not work for your dealer.
- And for those in the US, your dealer might not necessarily have a relationship with them, so he may not trust their assessment of true color/clarity compared to the paper.

When talking to his suppliers, this is probably what happens. He may ask for a G-VS2, and they are used that they can then offer also a H-VS1 if the correct G-VS2 is not available. Pricing will be similar, and the stones do not really have to differ a lot. So, if he asks now for the criteria (correctly) proposed by Charmypoo, his suppliers will likely not read that as strict criteria. My above search shows that the likelihood of them having the correct stone is small, and in their culture, anything that is GIA-EX is 'the best', so they will check color and clarity and confirm to your dealer that it is a true top-stone, because of color and clarity (combined with GIA-EX).

In my case, the number of times that I am met with utter surprise by seasoned professionals, because I discard GIA-EX based upon cut, is really high. They are used to me discarding them because we disagree with GIA on the color or clarity, but when it comes down to cut, the majority of the diamond-world still does not understand.

As for you and your dealer, I would suggest trying to give him Charmypoo's criteria as a minimum. But in today's market, I would not be surprised if he throws the towel. That does not make him a bad guy, just not prepared for the PS-microcosm. And luckily, the community here will be happy to steer you elsewhere if that were to happen.

Live long,

 

[Dee*Jay]

Paul, thank you for that excellent explanation. This is often discussed in threads in various ways and now I now have a better understanding of why it is so hard for "dealers" to (a) even get what people are asking for (just using even the *basic* parameters that buyers are requesting and not even taking into account all of the very specific PS criteria), and (b) grasp why dealers can't comprehend WHY, when the dealer does bring in what the customer is requesting (e.g., G VS2), the buyer will not accept the stone.

Yes, it does seem very much a "cultural" thing, and PS is indeed a microcosm!

P.S. - sorry for the off-topic post.

 

[denverappraiser]

Excellent summary Paul.

 

[denverappraiser]

Using the HCA as a way of sub-dividing ‘excellent’ in to various degrees of excellence is an extremely unusual approach and most dealers have never heard of it. Most of their suppliers have never heard of it either. The big databases don’t facilitate this search and the HCA doesn’t make it easy to process a large number of stones without data that isn’t regularly available. This includes Pricescope. When you search for stones using the HCA scores here, that field was entered by the seller when they listed the stone. It’s not being calculated in real time. If they didn’t include it, the way to get it is to pull up the lab doc, copy the relevant data into the app and get the results yourself. That may not seem like such a big deal but looking at a list of 100 or 1000 stones for a clarity/color/size spec and asking ‘what if’ sorts of questions about the ones with the lowest scores as you tweak the specs would be a HUGE pain. Given that what’s being asked is a ‘free’ service, and given that most don’t even believe in the concept in the first place, it’s no great surprise that compliance is difficult.

The solution is fairly straightforward. First, be honest with your dealer. Tell them what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. If they don’t want to play they can bow out. If they want to convince you to use a different methodology, they can make their case. If you stick with the HCA shopping method, don’t expect to just luck into a stone with a low score and your specs. It’s not that those don’t happen, there’s plenty of diamond out there, but they don’t happen by luck. They aren’t going to want to do the legwork and their suppliers probably aren’t going to responsive to it even if they do. Go to a dealer that both understands it and had dealt with it before. Y our chances of finding what you want without a great deal of frustration for both of you go way up. They understand the questions and they’ve got suppliers who understand them as well.

 

[Tekate]

+1
this.

Personally, if I was going to stick with him- I would consider being honest. Tell him you found this great diamond education forum and you are Looking for a stone with specific parameters. If he doesn't like that then perhaps something is amiss!

 

[ibdrinken]

Def lots of excellent info here