Desperate for good diamonds in Canada!

[bjd]

Hi,

I live in Vancouver Canada, and have been having a terrible time trying to find well cut diamonds at a decent price. I''m looking for a 0.5 carat, F/G VS2/SI1 H&A diamond that scores < 2 on HCA. But every B&M store I go to, when I mention cut, they keep telling me it''s an ideal cut, or that it''s a round brilliant.

The situation out here is just not good. Sometimes I wish I had never come on to this forum and become educated.

I hope that I have just been frequenting the wrong places though. If there is anybody on this forum who has had a good experience buying from a B&M store in Vancouver, could you please recommend them to me? If say I wanted Brilliance Scope results, is there any jeweler out here that would even know what I''m talking about? I guess I want it all - a really shiny diamond, the convenience of being able to see it in person, and not having to pay TOO much. Although I know I''m going to get ripped an extra 25% on taxes. It would be good if before taxes and conversion the price was even in the same range as what I can get online.

I''ve been to Spence diamonds (which was a total disaster), Birks which was way out of my price range, and some other mall stores. None of them could satisfy me as to the quality of the diamonds.

Any advice, recommendations, suggestions are welcome. Otherwise I''m going to have to smuggle the ring across the border somehow!

Thanks,

bjd

 

[PuddyKat]

HI BJD,

I bought my H&A diamond from Britton Jewelers in downtown Vancouver. I referred someone else from this site there and we were both very pleased with our purchases. Good luck!

Laurie

 

[manhattan01]

Hmm..Britton...they sound familir. BJD, I feel your pain. I went to the same 2 places you did and I didn't even bother with other jewellers as I believe that the situation would be the same. I don't feel comfortable buying a stone without the proper certs let alone the Bscope and sarin reports. I ended up buying online.

I'd follow PuddyKat's suggestion and check out Britton...maybe call them first. Chances are that if they know about and sell proper H&A diamonds, they'll have the reports to back em up.

-spencer

 

[WalnutCrunch]

Hey PuddyKat, think you're talking about me? First time I've been here for a while.

Spencer, just replied to your PM 3 weeks late. Sorry!

BJD:
The two that I dealt with were Britton and Davidson Designs. They both stress cut and have pretty good diamonds. Most of them come with AGS reports which you can plug in to the HCA. However, I've never heard of anyone in town who has one of those fancy machines that everyone talks about here. So you probably won't be able to get all the actual angles or see brilliantscope results (if anyone knows of a place in BC or even Canada that has one, let us know!)

I was dealing with those two vendors because they seemed to offer decent prices on Canadian stones and they actually say cut is important. Well, important to an extent that they say AGS ideal-0 equals great cut, which we know isn't necessarily true. But that's still better than most places who either say cut doesn't matter, or cut equals shape (like when they tell you it's a round brilliant cut).

If you're looking for non-Canadian stones, you have many more options. I didn't look thoroughly but Matt here on PS recommended Dean at Exclusively Diamonds. He's a broker who carries D-E-F, SI1+, ideally cut stones.

And with the exchange rate way down, you may want to check out Internet vendors here like NiceIce, GoG, and SuperbCert. When I was diamond shopping, the prices when buying from the US were already lower (even after taxes and duty, no smuggling involved) than a B&M store in Vancouver. The difference wasn't enough to sway me from buying here but there should be some real great prices in the US now. Many people here trust these vendors and you shouldn't be concerned about going with them. Chances are they're better at finding a great diamond than most of us can by going to a B&M store.

Good luck!

WC

 

[bjd]

Good stuff, thanks for the suggestions. All these places you mentioned sound better than where I went. I will definitely check out Britton and Davidson and give Exclusively Diamonds a call too.

 

[PuddyKat]

Hi WalnutCrunch! I can always count on you for thorough advice! Have you and your fiancee set a date yet?

 

[WalnutCrunch]

Give Dean a call first. He sounded super nice on the phone the one time I talked to him and his prices started off lower than what the other places quoted me at first...
http://www.exclusivelydiamonds.ca/ (604) 689-3738

 

[Papermaker]

Late getting to this post
Just wanted to say "ditto" re here in Vancouver
Did you have a meeting with Exclusively?
How did it go....