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E-Ring Selection - Opinions and Suggestions Requested!

M

megatr0n

Rough_Rock
Joined
May 3, 2014
Messages
4
Hello Pricescopers,

In the course of my engagement ring search Google was kind enough to point me in the direction of Pricescope and I have spent the last two weeks reading through the tremendous articles and benefiting from the experience and expertise of your members.

My diamond search has narrowed down to eye clean GIA XXX round brilliant stones in the H-I color range around 1.2C+. My budget for the diamond alone is $7500 but I can stretch to $8000 if the stone is truly exceptional. The plan is to set the diamond in an 18K white gold four prong solitaire setting. During my search I can across the following stone on Blue Nile which is on hold for 24 hours:

http://www.bluenile.com/round-diamond-1-carat-ideal-cut-i-color-vvs2-clarity_LD04098038?click_id=537307852

The diamond specs in short:
$7500
1.23C
GIA 3X
I Color
VVS2
Medium Blue Fluoro
Depth 62.0
Table 56.0
Crown 34.5 Degrees
Pavillion 41.0 Degrees

HCA 1.8

The Blue Nile supplier confirmed the medium blue fluoro has no effect on the appearance of the stone and was kind enough to supply the (admittedly lo-res) photos attached. The supplier is unwilling or unable to provide Idealscope, ASET or H&A imagery.





My request of the sage Pricescope community is two-fold:

1) Can someone to comment on the appearance of the stone based on these photos?
2) Can you suggest a superior or more certain alternate stone which fits in my budget?

Thank you kindly in advance for your assistance. Let me know if you have any questions!

PS - Please excuse my juvenile user name as I didn't think I would actually get around to posting! :))

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Hi! That is encouraging to see they even provided a picture! I think it looks good, but I'll take a look and see what else I can find that would have an idealscope image as well as a picture.

Well, I can't find anything even in VS that will beat that price at that size. There are "better" diamonds as far as superideal cut goes, but if you are willing to take the risk of buying a diamond without better pictures or an idealscope image, I think this one has really good potential. Fluorescence is a plus with I color, too.
 
Thank you for taking the time to review this diamond. After all that I've read on the forums here is seems risky to buy without some sort of definitive imagery but I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little invested in this stone. I have done about a week of vendor searches on Pricescope and for my budget this seems like a good candidate. I've got about 12 hours to make a decision on buying or not.

Also appreciate your search for alternate stones; I am no expert but it seems like the market is a little thin (or more expensive that I thought) in my desired category at the moment. Is there a typical "season" or time of the month during which new loose stones come on the market or is it effectively random?

Right now I am skewing my search towards stones with certifications dated in 2014 under the assumption that the diamond market will snap up the best stones and those that languish are still around for a reason. Is this a fair assumption?

Would welcome diamond suggestions from anyone else who stumbles upon this post. Specs below:

$7500 - 8000
Round Brilliant
Eye Clean
H-I Color
1.15 Carats+

Thanks again for your help and please have yourself a great long weekend! -Matt
 
I didn't look at SI1 stones, only VS1 and VS2 since your example stone was VVS.

I definitely would not eliminate stones before 2014. 2013 is totally fine. It does not necessarily mean that the stone wasn't desirable. Lower clarity stones may go out the door faster because of lower price, so there certainly may be VS1 and higher stones that sit longer. I have actually observed that in vendor inventories.

There are three main reasons that some of the vendors are a little higher. One is that superideal cut stones command a premium. Second is that they offer more services such as all the magnified images for the stone and confirmed light performance, and third, better upgrade policies.

I wish if they were taking a picture, they would have done a close-up, but it is certainly going to be better than most stones out there. Obviously you could return it if it wasn't satisfactory, but I think the cut looks good from the numbers.

You have a great weekend and please come back with pictures of your ring!
 
Several questions that are interesting were raised here; one that caught my attention is when the stones were certified. I have to admit that I have several stones dating back to 2011/2012. The reason they were certified then and not sold is that they were never on the market but held back and only recently became available. One is a Rapaport stone also. This is a common occurrence and stones can be held back for many reasons; one being that they are set aside since the prices are going up and cutters want to wait before they sell them. Sometimes they are waiting for the market to mature to certain ideas. We know there are and can be many other reasons as well. Stones can also be set aside for certain clients, I know I have had stones set aside for me for months especially in the case of melee. I have also had very large stones set aside for me for months for various reasons. Cutters may set aside certain categories for me if I buy them and could end up wanting to buy more of them in the future.

Another important point that was raised here is that supply is limited; this is true, the supply of rough has gone down a lot in recent months, this is also a fact and in many way hurting the market. Prices of rough and with that polished goods are going up and with scarce supply it can be hard to supply vendors with stones they are asking for. This is especially true in the case of G/VS stones which have gone up more proportionally.
 
I think the second option RockyRacoon suggested is really nice, far better than the original stone. Superideal cut and light performance, good color, good clarity; twinning wisps are not a worry and there is only one crystal. It is 1.1 but you will not notice that minimal of a difference in weight. I would worry that the first option has way too many crystals some of which could be eye visible, the third option concerns me not only for the clarity but also that it has strong blue fluor which could be a problem.
 
OVincze|1400858937|3678804 said:
Several questions that are interesting were raised here; one that caught my attention is when the stones were certified. I have to admit that I have several stones dating back to 2011/2012. The reason they were certified then and not sold is that they were never on the market but held back and only recently became available. One is a Rapaport stone also. This is a common occurrence and stones can be held back for many reasons; one being that they are set aside since the prices are going up and cutters want to wait before they sell them. Sometimes they are waiting for the market to mature to certain ideas. We know there are and can be many other reasons as well. Stones can also be set aside for certain clients, I know I have had stones set aside for me for months especially in the case of melee. I have also had very large stones set aside for me for months for various reasons. Cutters may set aside certain categories for me if I buy them and could end up wanting to buy more of them in the future.

Another important point that was raised here is that supply is limited; this is true, the supply of rough has gone down a lot in recent months, this is also a fact and in many way hurting the market. Prices of rough and with that polished goods are going up and with scarce supply it can be hard to supply vendors with stones they are asking for. This is especially true in the case of G/VS stones which have gone up more proportionally.
Click to expand...


Good info OVi, nice to have the perspective from professionals too!
 
Thank you proto, diamondseeker2006, LLJsmom, OVincze, RockyRacoon and Lorelei for your time and opinions. My diamond search is just getting back on track as my dear girlfriend wouldn't give me much privacy to make progress this past weekend!

Based on a number of their policies (returns, currency of payment, brokerage) I have come to the conclusion that Blue Nile is my best option. Don't think I mentioned the fact that I live in Toronto, Canada.

Honestly I would prefer to give my business to one of the "preferred" Pricescope vendors such as Whiteflash, Brian Gavin or James Allen but Blue Nile seems a little easier to deal with as a Canadian.

That being said I understand I am taking a gamble with the appearance of any stone I select as Blue Nile does not offer much in the way of high-end imagery (ASET, Idealscope, ...). However they have been very helpful with procuring images of varying quality and some H&A type images.

At this point I have a "short list" of three round brilliant stones from Blue Nile which I am considering:

1) The original stone I started this thread with. See un-magnified images in first post.

C$8186 1.23 I VVS2 Medium Blue HCA 1.80

2) The stone detailed below which appears to have TERRIFIC dimensions. No imagery available as yet.

C$8517 1.22 H VS1 Strong Blue HCA 1.00



3) The stone detailed below and in the embedded magnified and H&A type images.

C$8926 1.31 I VS1 Medium Blue HCA 0.70







Note that I seem to be limited to five attachments to this post. To be continued...

diamond_43.jpg

diamond_44.jpg

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Here is the third image of Diamond #3 referred to in my post immediately above.



Just for the heck of it here are three more images for another stone I am considering.

C$8448 1.25 H SI1 Faint HCA 0.70







http://www.bluenile.com/ca/round-diamond-1-carat-ideal-cut-h-colour-si1-clarity_LD04282296?keyword_search_value=LD04282296

Any feedback you Pricescopers can provide on the first three stones would be appreciated. Frankly I am leaning towards the second stone as it is a color grade higher and the dimensions seem to be almost spot-on for good H&A performance. I don't really know how to interpret magnified images and the H&A imagery provided.

Cheers,

M

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