Eeny, meeny, miny, mo....What did you do to narrow your options down, and shop for a diamond?

[Regular Guy]

Not sure how unique my own process was. Also, lots of us end up telling our story here. The idea of this thread is basically...

how many tries at the bat did you take before making your pick...and relatedly, did you use any strategies you'd like to share to narrow your list down.

 

[Regular Guy]

For some things, I'll shop a lot, and broadly. But for other, seemingly expensive items, I'm more data intensive.

This last weekend I just bought a used car. Also, I did that 6 years ago. In each of these 2 cases, after having scoured cars.com, and having taken into consideration factors (besides type: minivan) of: a) mileage, b) year, c) safety and d) reliability factors per consumer reports, the first car I saw was also the one I went and bought.

Last summer, I bought my wife's replacement diamond. In this case as well, after having narrowed down the approximate size, color, clarity, I selected a diamond from one of the databases here, confirmed to my satisfaction the quality of the cut, and my first choice was the choice I did end up getting.

Recently, it's been speculated here that "most people who find PS are using the HCA just to see if a diamond (will be beautiful), CAN or could be beautiful. Or even maybe, or might be beautiful."

Blah, blah, blah.

Probably, there are no problems. The additional provision of images, which get a lot of press, may genuinely make this process accurate and easy. Nevertheless, if for lots of people, their first choice is their end choice, this may be telling. Then again, if one's 3rd to 13th pick ends up being the one...not sure what different conclusions to draw; this is to be determined.

 

[fire&ice]

I''m unsure what you mean. Are you asking how many diamonds you viewed before choosing *the* one; or how many you called in before selecting?

 

[Regular Guy]

F&I,

Thanks for asking; I tried asking a couple of ways, but that''s really not clarified, but could be left to the responder. For example, even if in one "effort/viewing" you had reference to three options, if you had anticipated a first choice, second, and third, if you ended up going with the second choice...maybe that would count as 2 (even though it was one effort, and you''d called in 3).

What we''re going for, I guess, is how many times did you need to challenge yourself, matching what you thought you were looking for, to deciding that you found the one.

Is that helpful? Can you say it better?

Best,

 

[Mara]

Possibly, how many times did you seriously consider that you had found 'the one'? aka for us it was happened upon first one we really liked which we were close to buying on the spot, then did some research, narrowed it down to one that we were close to purchasing online that had all the cut parameters I was looking for, but then saw 2 more in person and ended up buying one of those. so for us it would be 3?

confusing...am I close? hehe.

one thing i would tell people is to not get overwhelmed. the best thing to do is overeducate yourself first and see a bunch of stones in person to figure out what you really like, and know that there are different ways to cut a beautiful stone.

when i think back to how freaked out i was that first time in buying, G had to make an 'executive decision' to save me from myself. but now when i buy a new stone, i know exactly what i am looking for because i know now what my eyes like to see, and there are no compromises if i can help it. so it's much less stressful and straight-forward for me now. maybe practice really does make perfect.

 

[fire&ice]

I'm not sure how to answer. But, I will tell you my buying experience. It's not unlike any other purchase I make. I see, see, see & see & then I see one and I buy it - usually on the spot. It's yet to fail me.

So....I saw plenty of stones. Took one look at the *one* and I knew it was coming home with me. Though, my heart knew - my head had to "rationalize" it by seeing the information and viewing the stone in tons of different lighting. Funny, it's the way we bought my very first stone. Both of us looked and looked. We took one look at the *one* and knew it was the *one*.

Edited to add: I took one swing at the bat. I waited for just the right pitch then swung. I did review many pitches though.