bingbongbug
Rough_Rock
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2002
- Messages
- 61
Okay, you have to read through this. Some of you will be disgusted, others, like me, will get a chuckle.
I have been wrestling with getting a square diamond for a while. After seeing the Hearts on Fire Dream, and after hearing how close to a brilliant that Flanders can be in terms of light return, I decided a Flanders was the way to go.
Then, the only trouble became, do I pay the premium for the Dream stone that I loved, or do I get more stone for my money and try to find an unbranded Flanders that I liked as much?
I was at the mall today so I dropped by the store that carries Dreams. (This is not the store that I saw the stone that I loved.) I walk in and peer at the stones. A lady appears immediately and pulls out a Dream that is set in their Dream setting (which is quite pretty). But the stone was an I, and looked -very- yellow, which looked pretty bad in a white gold setting. So I asked if they had anything with better color.
She asked if I was looking for a Dream in particular. I said I wasn't sure if I'd get a Dream, or get an unbranded Flanders. She was perplexed, didn't know what a Flanders was. I explained that it was the same cut as the Dream, but not branded and therefore not necessarily with the "ideal" parameters of the Dream. She asked another saleslady if she knew what a Flanders was. She said she'd heard of one, that it was a fad years ago, and they don't make them anymore. I mentioned other similar cuts, like the Lucere and Elara, and neither had heard of either. So this saleslady takes over. I explained that the Flanders was the same cut as the Dream, and she told me that it just wasn't possible.
She tells me that I can't actually tell the difference with my eyes between a near-colorless and a colorless, even though I "think" I do. I said that since it will be set in either white gold or platinum, that it's important to me to have a colorless stone. Hold on to your hats, this woman tried to tell me that white gold MASKS color in a diamond. I said that actually, yellow gold would do that. Again, she argued and said that it was a question on her diamond test that she remembers, and that I had a popular misconception.
She took the ring out of the store for me to see, out in the skylit area of the mall. The stone went totally dead outside of the bright store lighting. There was no fire at all, and very little scintillation. She tried to tell me how much "better" it looked out in natural light, that the stone looked much whiter, and only looked yellowish under the store lights, which had a yellow tint (they were standard jewelry store bright lights--tell me why a jewelry store would have lights that made their jewelry look WORSE..LOL).
So we go back in the store and I ask if ALL Dreams are ideal in polish and symmetry. She looked confused, and said that all Dreams are triple ideal, that it's required in order to be a Dream. I said that because it's a fancy, it can't possibly have ideal proportion. Again, she argued with me, and said that they were triple ideals, graded "0" by AGS. She got the cert to show me that I was wrong and whaddaya know...ideal polish and symmetry, but NOT proportion (of course).
I ask "You don't happen to have idealscopes do you?" She looked perplexed, and said that the cert showed that it was ideal. LOL
It was at this point that I decided that I really had to get out of there. I had seen what I needed to see, and that was that all Dreams are not created equal, in spite of ideal symmetry and polish. All of the colors were bad in there, and they somehow lacked in the fire that I LOVED about the Dream I saw at another store.
Not sure what this says about Dreams, as the one I saw I still adore, but the ones in this store really turned me off. But the story's good for a laugh, and it's a good cautionary tale for people who think of buying without really educating themselves first. Don't let the salespeople fool you with their big talk! A little research and you will know more than they do.
I have been wrestling with getting a square diamond for a while. After seeing the Hearts on Fire Dream, and after hearing how close to a brilliant that Flanders can be in terms of light return, I decided a Flanders was the way to go.
Then, the only trouble became, do I pay the premium for the Dream stone that I loved, or do I get more stone for my money and try to find an unbranded Flanders that I liked as much?
I was at the mall today so I dropped by the store that carries Dreams. (This is not the store that I saw the stone that I loved.) I walk in and peer at the stones. A lady appears immediately and pulls out a Dream that is set in their Dream setting (which is quite pretty). But the stone was an I, and looked -very- yellow, which looked pretty bad in a white gold setting. So I asked if they had anything with better color.
She asked if I was looking for a Dream in particular. I said I wasn't sure if I'd get a Dream, or get an unbranded Flanders. She was perplexed, didn't know what a Flanders was. I explained that it was the same cut as the Dream, but not branded and therefore not necessarily with the "ideal" parameters of the Dream. She asked another saleslady if she knew what a Flanders was. She said she'd heard of one, that it was a fad years ago, and they don't make them anymore. I mentioned other similar cuts, like the Lucere and Elara, and neither had heard of either. So this saleslady takes over. I explained that the Flanders was the same cut as the Dream, and she told me that it just wasn't possible.
She tells me that I can't actually tell the difference with my eyes between a near-colorless and a colorless, even though I "think" I do. I said that since it will be set in either white gold or platinum, that it's important to me to have a colorless stone. Hold on to your hats, this woman tried to tell me that white gold MASKS color in a diamond. I said that actually, yellow gold would do that. Again, she argued and said that it was a question on her diamond test that she remembers, and that I had a popular misconception.
She took the ring out of the store for me to see, out in the skylit area of the mall. The stone went totally dead outside of the bright store lighting. There was no fire at all, and very little scintillation. She tried to tell me how much "better" it looked out in natural light, that the stone looked much whiter, and only looked yellowish under the store lights, which had a yellow tint (they were standard jewelry store bright lights--tell me why a jewelry store would have lights that made their jewelry look WORSE..LOL).
So we go back in the store and I ask if ALL Dreams are ideal in polish and symmetry. She looked confused, and said that all Dreams are triple ideal, that it's required in order to be a Dream. I said that because it's a fancy, it can't possibly have ideal proportion. Again, she argued with me, and said that they were triple ideals, graded "0" by AGS. She got the cert to show me that I was wrong and whaddaya know...ideal polish and symmetry, but NOT proportion (of course).
I ask "You don't happen to have idealscopes do you?" She looked perplexed, and said that the cert showed that it was ideal. LOL
It was at this point that I decided that I really had to get out of there. I had seen what I needed to see, and that was that all Dreams are not created equal, in spite of ideal symmetry and polish. All of the colors were bad in there, and they somehow lacked in the fire that I LOVED about the Dream I saw at another store.
Not sure what this says about Dreams, as the one I saw I still adore, but the ones in this store really turned me off. But the story's good for a laugh, and it's a good cautionary tale for people who think of buying without really educating themselves first. Don't let the salespeople fool you with their big talk! A little research and you will know more than they do.
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