Diamond masterstone set - color grading - RBC

[yungari]

Hello,

my name is Frank from Hamburg, Germany. I am trying to find a diamond masterstone set since a couple of weeks. But whereever I have asked nobody can provide or does at least know where to go ?
Do you ? Asked Lazar, Kaplan, GIA.
I would love to buy a
Round Brillant Cut Masterstone Set for color grading
GIA certified
below one carat each
starting from E to I or J (more if possible)

Please let me know

Thanks for reading

Frank

 

[John P]

Hello Frank,

LK used to sell them but stopped. Folks who have asked us to help with masters are assembling them one diamond at a time now. Do know that to qualify as masters the lab must approve them beyond a regular report, as each master must be at the high point in its grade-range. Most diamonds submitted aren't approved, which means it's a tricky prospect.

GIA has purchased diamonds from us. They don't cite the purpose, but when they ask to buy a 2 or 4-grain, VS+, X-color+ by our notes it's a good chance that will be the lab's use for it. To me this implies that they're hand-selecting, and possibly not outsourcing whole sets (they certainly have the volume to hand-pick), and without demand from GIA it may not be worthwhile for suppliers to assemble them.

Gary Wright sells AGSL master sets. That makes sense, since GGs are not required to have diamond masters but AGS-approved labs. It may also be a requirement of using the AGS CGA or ICGA designation, but I'm not sure? I will ask Neil Beaty to visit this thread. He owns a set of masters which are inscribed-as-such by both AGSL and GIA. So does Wink Jones, another professional contributor to the forum.

Best regards,

 

[denverappraiser]

They’re quite difficult to buy, and quite expensive. Gary Wright out of Phoenix sells them and builds them for people but I don’t think he carries much in the way of inventory. The approved GIA way to do it is to build it yourself, send it to them for grading, replace the ones that they don’t approve of, and do it again. It’s very tedious and very expensive.

Occasionally they turn up on the secondary market with some grader dies but it takes a bit of luck to merge 2 sets. All stones need to be within 0.10cts of each other and 0.9x’s are actually pretty rare. 0.4x +/- is more common because of the budget issues. It’s easy to spend over $30k and a year of screwing around with it to get the set you described.

My set came from a combination of all of the above. I've bought stones from LK, others from Gary and mostly I built it myself. I have what in the industry would count as a very large set with 13 stones that go from E all with way to W. (bought that W on ebay earlier this year).

 

[denverappraiser]

Here's Gary's site.

http://www.garywwrightco.com/

 

[yungari]

Thank you John,
thank you Denverappraiser,

hope to get a quote from Gary Wright - wrote him a message today. I will start collecting stones and send them to GIA to build a little stock over the months / years. But for now buying is the only solution that I can afford timewise. Thanks again for your kind support.

Best regards

Frank

 

[yungari]

Thank you John,

I have just realized that it could be impolite not to answer directly to your post. So please take my apologies for that.
And thanks again for your kind help

best regards

Frank

 

[yungari]

Sorry John,

did not want to be impolite by answering your post not directly but adding another post. Thank you for your info and kind help.
Whenever you need somesthing in Germany or Hamburg please feel free to let me know.

Best regards

Frank

 

[John P]

Frank,

You're welcome, and thank you for asking about forum decorum. Pricescope members frequently address several comments in a single reply, so no worries and certainly no need to apologize.

Best regards,

 

[Rockdiamond]

They’re quite difficult to buy, and quite expensive. Gary Wright out of Phoenix sells them and builds them for people but I don’t think he carries much in the way of inventory. The approved GIA way to do it is to build it yourself, send it to them for grading, replace the ones that they don’t approve of, and do it again. It’s very tedious and very expensive.

Occasionally they turn up on the secondary market with some grader dies but it takes a bit of luck to merge 2 sets. All stones need to be within 0.10cts of each other and 0.9x’s are actually pretty rare. 0.4x +/- is more common because of the budget issues. It’s easy to spend over $30k and a year of screwing around with it to get the set you described.

My set came from a combination of all of the above. I've bought stones from LK, others from Gary and mostly I built it myself. I have what in the industry would count as a very large set with 13 stones that go from E all with way to W. (bought that W on ebay earlier this year).

I'd love to see your set one day Neil ( that came out really wrong )

Seriously- great discussion- I never knew what went into the making of a master set.
The W stone you mention- does GIA allow a separate W and X stones?
Or would they use the top of the grade, making the X stone unnecessary?
If that's that case, you'd need a W and a Y, yes?

Interesting because GIA does not split these grades on regular reports