Don''t know what to do

[countingdown]

I met with Rock Doc today and saw the Whiteflash stone in person. Now I am really confused. They are both stunning stones. The Smaller stone is a tad crisper but the larger one is a little whiter looking. Rock Doc gave them both 9's out of 10 and said even he is not sure which he would go with but I sense he us leaning towards the larger stone. I just really do not know which one to pick. The larger stone was sent out two weeks ago on memo and has to go back on monday so I really need to make a decision. Obviously the larger stone is not and AGS triple 0 but Rock Doc said its a very well cut stone. So what do I do? Kaliegh, Mara,Valeria,regular guy, and Fire Ice what are your thoughts?

 

[Kaleigh]

I would say that if the larger one faces up whiter, and Rock Doc says it's a great stone with cut and all then I'd go for that one. It's hard, but at some point you really need to trust your eyes. You have been given great advice and they are both awesome candidates, so now it's up to you. I trust Rock Doc, good luck.

 

[yellowfan]

I would go with the larger one

 

[aljdewey]

At some point, you have to trust in YOUR ability to choose.

There is no clear winner or loser here.....what that tells me is "there is no *wrong* decision".

None of us have seen them, and you have seen them, so I really think you need to trust in yourself and pick whichever one spoke to YOU more.

 

[northstar_78]

I''m going to buck the trend and say go with the smaller one...being me I don''t have good eyes for color but I do love well cut stones.

 

[belle]

you have seen them, we have not.....decide what it is that is most important to you, and pick the one that has those qualities. i''m sure you won''t be dissapointed with either of them!

best of luck with your decision!

 

[Regular Guy]

Hey, Duane,

I''m going with what aljdewey, Belle and Northstar said...pretty much in that order.

1) Only you among us has seen these two options, and like a tree falling in the forest...the only sound your decision will make is the one that you hear (if that makes any sense). As a technique to determine this, try picturing giving your girlfriend one and then the other, and consider in which scenario you''re more likely to be kicking yourself for not giving her the other one.

2) To walk this backwards (I couldn''t get any great insight from your older posts), see if there''s any criteria you''ve brought, or are bringing to the process, that you want to judge your decision against. You may find that certain temporary observations were made, and judgements were made, but that, if applying your decision process against some basic assumptions YOU have or had to begin with, in the longer run, staying the course with whatever those criteria are or were will have a longer term feeling of soundness to you. And so, as for example, although it seems like your appraiser only implicitly gave you a feeling of his preference, but explicitly gave you nothing to go with, your re-considering again explicitly if there are any criteria you would ask him to help you with a judgement about, what would those criteria would be? If you''re clear about it, tell him what they are, and ask him to apply them, and tell you again what he thinks...although you may already have the data to imagine correctly enough what he would say.

3) Given that it''s got to be you, what I would choose would tend to be irrelevant, and on the face of it, again, as Al says, based on your own opinion, you win either way, since that''s only really saying back to you what you said to us...that you really think both are beautiful.

For me...I would choose the smaller one, I think, because a) I tend to disbelieve in my ability short term to pick out "ideal" performers, and tend to perhaps more than I should believe in the HCA''s good predictability of light performance. But then, of course, it sounds like if you take away the "concept" and descriptor of AGS0, you might agree with me. Then b) there''s what the diamond "could" be. Fortunately, we didn''t depend on that concept when we bought our house. When we did that, we saw that the basement could be renovated to have a person living down there in the combination of finished & unfinished basement, and set up to be compartmentalized. It still can, but it''s 12 years later, we haven''t, and probably won''t do this. Likewise, I suppose you could cut your diamond, extracting greater value, and looks, but will you, and would they do a good job, and for what costs, etc. and c) if I read what you did in picking this diamond up from WF all right, I now understand that you got if from them on memo, with them getting it from out of house (is that right), and you took a chance that it will have been a winner. That''s the classic test case for shopping for options (x) & (y), in the scenario I review under the signature of all my posts, and you will have just lived this one out, where you will have compared, with one vendor, one diamond (from away) against one diamond in house. In this scenario, your job is to optimize on your choice between these two. Sounds like the bigger one has more undisclosed potential, and at a higher price tag, and the smaller one possibly more "in the hand" beauty, though that''s perhaps not clear either.

I tend to think you like the bigger one, and that I''m superstitious about the HCA, and that we might pick different stones. Unless I will have been convincing in my #3, there is no right answer, and you''ve got to pick the one you will be most proud to offer your beloved.

With best wishes,