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Emerald cut search - expert help please!

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Thanks for the advice bgray - it is appreciated, but we are not going blind into this process and have certainly taken on board the wealth of information on this forum. Contrary to how it may seem we have actually done a lot of research prior to starting and whilst I have asked for opinions here, ultimately we'll see what options come out of the search and make a considered decision. Given the testimonials I have seen here, I feel comfortable that ERD are perfectly capable, but there are advantages and disadvantages to their service. We are keeping our options open but I am simply presenting what is available to me currently from the information I have received. I may have given the impression that it's all urgent/rushed but we have plenty of time to see it unfold - it's a work in progress that I am sharing here :)

As a side note, as I clarified above - the original 4 stones pictured were not actually pictured as Dan's recommendation - of the 4 he only liked one and sent the photo to make sure we were happy with the L/W ratio (they are all around 1:4).

Naturally I am interested in what everyone here has to say though, or I would not have asked :)
 
Date: 1/15/2010 8:12:23 AM
Author: pancake
Thanks for the advice bgray - it is appreciated, but we are not going blind into this process. Contrary to how it may seem I have actually done a lot of research prior to starting and whilst I have asked for opinions here, ultimately we''ll see what options come out of the search and make a considered decision prior. Given the testimonials I have seen here, I feel comfortable that ERD are perfectly capable, but there are advantages and disadvantages to their service. We are keeping our options open but I am simply presenting what is available to me currently from the information I have received.


Naturally I am interested in what everyone here has to say though, or I would not have asked :)
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Thats great --I have seen this play out with them before repeatedly. and personally. They offer 3 or 4 stones from bleh to a little better to good. I dont like that you cant have 4 good stones to chose from. there are more than two decent ECs in your range out there.
 
Date: 1/15/2010 8:18:37 AM
Author: bgray
Thats great --I have seen this play out with them before repeatedly. and personally. They offer 3 or 4 stones from bleh to a little better to good. I dont like that you cant have 4 good stones to chose from. there are more than two decent ECs in your range out there.
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I have expanded on my previous post a little - appreciate the concern. We are, as I said before, talking to a number of vendors.

If you have concerns about ERD''s service in general I would be interested to hear about it though.
 
Date: 1/15/2010 8:20:51 AM
Author: pancake
Date: 1/15/2010 8:18:37 AM

Author: bgray

Thats great --I have seen this play out with them before repeatedly. and personally. They offer 3 or 4 stones from bleh to a little better to good. I dont like that you cant have 4 good stones to chose from. there are more than two decent ECs in your range out there.
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I am sure their overall customer service is fine--its the way they source diamonds and sell their diamonds on many levels that troubles me. If they are notorious for their bad photos (as was commented) why dont they improve their photos? Why dont they provide many of the services (aset, sarin etc) other vendors offer that arent as optimally located as they are? My take; they don''t want to. It eliminates too many stones. In my opinion they like to try to predetermine the outcome: instead of 4 stones that all somewhat fit someones request, it always seems to be a group with significant disparity from bad to best. So that the person buys the one decent stone they are offered.



I have expanded on my previous post a little - appreciate the concern. We are, as I said before, talking to a number of vendors.


If you have concerns about ERD''s service in general I would be interested to hear about it though.
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Progress:

We are talking to WF and GOG. WF wants to bring in an F IF for us which does sound good (but I am baulking a little at paying for the IF clarity even though it is well in budget - would rather spend that money on other aspects), GOG are going to get onto it early next week.

Meanwhile, talks with ERD continue... I have laid out my concerns by email and am waiting on more magnified photos and a full Sarin report. I can live without ASET if multiple "experts" can tell me that the light performance is great, but I want to see the facet patterns close up and I want to know crown heights.

Meanwhile, below is another picture of the two stones (which have been weeded down from 7 or 8 - not including the yuckies in the original post). Dan and one of the other ERD guys (don't know which) spent some time looking at them together. They say that both are beautiful but the larger one performs slightly better particularly when tilted. Unfortunately I think the smaller one is more "my type of stone" - bigger windmills, more dimensional look to the steps, smaller table. There is a substantial price difference between them (almost 30%). It seems that each is an example of a different type of EC (the F VS1 of the more spready, shallow, broader-tabled variety; the E VS2 a higher crowned, smaller tabled type).

pancake3.jpg
 
Pancake, I LOVE the bottom one in the above picture.
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I like both, but admittedly I like the larger one because it is larger (size who*e
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) ... and prefer the smaller one overall.

I have seen stones sourced by ERD and A) I have no issue with 'how' they are sourced B) know they find gorgeous stones for people and C) though I have never purchased from them TO DATE, have received great customer service every time I have fielded an inquiry their way. And I've seen, and liked, their custom work too.

Pancake, dig into bgray's old posts-- you'll see he has an ax to grind.Then do a general search on ERD and you'll see he is one of only A FEW to ever have one with ERD. Every vendor on here has glowing reviews, as well as detractors: If ERD is bending over backwards to help you (and it seems like they are) trust your gut. As for WF or GOG, both have good reps on here... so does ERD. And the best way to judge a step cut is with your eyes. ERD has a great return policy. Why not send for the stone you like best, purchasing it, and see what you think. I think the smaller one of the two in the pic above is going to knock your socks off.
 
Date: 1/17/2010 1:10:55 AM
Author: Gypsy
I like both, but admittedly I like the larger one because it is larger (size who*e
3.gif
) ... and prefer the smaller one overall.


I have seen stones sourced by ERD and A) I have no issue with ''how'' they are sourced B) know they find gorgeous stones for people and C) though I have never purchased from them TO DATE, have received great customer service every time I have fielded an inquiry their way. And I''ve seen, and liked, their custom work too.


Pancake, dig into bgray''s old posts-- you''ll see he has an ax to grind.Then do a general search on ERD and you''ll see he is one of only A FEW to ever have one with ERD. Every vendor on here has glowing reviews, as well as detractors: If ERD is bending over backwards to help you (and it seems like they are) trust your gut. As for WF or GOG, both have good reps on here... so does ERD. And the best way to judge a step cut is with your eyes. ERD has a great return policy. Why not send for the stone you like best, purchasing it, and see what you think. I think the smaller one of the two in the pic above is going to knock your socks off.
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This is incredibly dishonest. I have no axe to grind. I went to ERD more than once and was disturbed by their process. I felt like I was presented with "the best we could find" with no effort to find others. It left a bad taste in my mouth to see that same presentation when I tried again and I have seen it here numerous times. I believe they have a contrived sales algorithm and I dont like it. That isnt an axe, thats my experience. I also dont think it is in dispute that they do not offer aset, sarin, or other tools of assessment.....they love the trust your eyes and our eyes mantra and while that has some merit I also find the lack of additional information of benefit only to them.
 
I like the bigger one better b/c of the size, but the pattern and overall look of the bottom one is more appealing to me...
 
Bgray, what is dishonest about my countering your experiences with my own. As for my comment about an axe to grind... I've been on these boards for some years and there are three vendors I do not care for (none of them is ERD), for one reason or another... I also know that my fellow PSers feel the same about certain vendors (not the sames ones that I don't care for... just that everyone has their own experiences) and yet none of us crash EVERY thread about these vendors with the sole purpose of turning what was one 'disturbing experience' into a conspiracy theory about the vendor's entire operation. You do seem to have a vendetta. You cannot let one post about ERD pass without making a disparaging comment. You cannot admit that perhaps your experiences with the vendor migh thave occurred on an off day, or that other's might have a different experience-- though I KNOW that they have, and continue to do so... and you seem to delight in trying to ruin any possible business sent their way with your disparaging and vague feelings of 'disquiet'... that as far as I can tell are founded solely on your one single incident with them, and not on fact or on any method that is observable, repeatable, or measurable.

Go read your own post history... maybe you'll find it enlightening to see that you really do have a very deep prejudice and do seek to prevent anyone from working with ERD. Which is the real 'unfair' thing here. Because ERD is a great company with a great reputation... who does not post on here. And yet you continually bash them.
 
Thanks for the clearer photos, its really difficult to say without an ASET image - from what I can tell the bottom one looks the best but I can''t see clearly enough to give you any really meaningful info unfortunately.
 
Gypsy and Lorelei - thanks for your help :)

I am pretty sure I would LOVE the 2nd one if I saw it in person. It looks to be the type of stone that appeals to me - big windmills, high crown, 4 pavilion steps. That said, without anything else to compare it to it is hard to make a decision. Neither I nor my partner likes the larger one, so really we're left with one stone with nothing similar/comparable to pit it against.

The other thing is that whilst stone 2's dimensions are quite big for its carat weight, its price is at the lower end of our budget and whilst the stone would look perfectly well-proportioned on my hand (it's 7.25 x 5.12 face up, my finger is a 4.5 - 4.75), I wouldn't mind going sliiiiightly bigger (but not as big as stone 1, which is very spread and I think it would look enormous!). The WF stone has the same L/W ratio as stone 2, and would come in between stone 1 and 2 in face up dimensions.

I think that we'll wait for WF and GOG to show us what they've got - does anyone know how long they take? Hopefully we should have some options this week (and hopefully close-up photos of stone 2) and then be able to make a decision. Does that sound reasonable, or are we shafting the vendors that way by keeping our options so open? Obviously I want to have as many good options as possible and I know this is a business transaction but I don't want to do the wrong thing by anyone!

I don't know if this is the best plan but I suspect it's how we'll do it.

Gypsy - I like the option of having the stone sent and then deciding, but it wouldn't be ideal, simply because we're in Australia and wanted to have the stone set overseas (as the price differential of the setting is at least 20-40% compared to here) - so we'd have to pay to have it shipped here, then ship it back to the US for setting, and then ship it back here again. Also, we can't insure a loose stone here so if we had it set locally we'd be stuffed if it were to be damaged in the process.
 
Hi Pancake,

I don't think it takes long for WF and GOG to get diamonds in, I would anticipate a few days but I would email or call and ask them what the usual timeframe is.
 
Thanks Lorelei - that sounds great. Hopefully the ERD stone will stick around for a few days too!

Out of interest, all - how do you get around it when a vendor has been really helpful, brought stones in for perusal, then you turn them down after all their trouble? I am feeling anticipatory guilt already! Everyone is so helpful!
 
Just my 2 cents, I would prefer to have ASET (to see where that light is going!), a Sarin scan for crown height (for fire), and a photo of the diamond as well as the other information from the certificate. When I purchased my diamond, it was sight unseen, and having all of that information for people here to be able to help me properly made the whole process much less stressful, especially since I was having my diamond set in the USA and sent to me just before the proposal, I didn''t want to take many risks! A video of the diamond would have been a great addition, but my chosen vendor didn''t provide video, and I felt that I had enough information to make an informed decision. I actually had 3 emerald cut stones brought in by my vendor, and they all had very close measurements on the certificate, but they all performed very differently on the ASET!

Going without all the information is a risk, you need to decide for yourself if it''s worth it or not. Maybe if you post your requirements for carat, color, clarity and your budget, someone here might be able to find other stones for you to consider as well?

Good luck with your search!
 
Hey Lestat - thanks for your insights, it's very helpful to have a fellow Aussie here!

I already have scans of the GIA certificates of both the ERD stones as well as 2 from WF (of which we will call only one in). I know ERD have provided Sarins in the past so I have asked for that.

I have been religiously doing a PS search every day and also searching ERD/Excel/WF/James Allen. Not much is coming up; WF came up with several stones that looked like they might be pretty good but when I emailed them with the links, Traci then came up with 2 completely different stones that weren't on my list!

Specs:
1.2-1.4-ish ct (originally thought maybe a bit bigger but I tried on a 1.6 yesterday and it looked kind of grotesque on my finger!)
Colour F-H
Clarity VS2 and above
L/W Ratio 1:4
Budget up to about $8500

Other little preferences - big windmills/clipped corners, maybe a 4 step pavilion

It's all kind of an ordeal; sometimes a really exciting/fun one, but at other times also really frustrating - we've only been looking for a week tomorrow!
 
Date: 1/17/2010 6:18:26 AM
Author: pancake
Thanks Lorelei - that sounds great. Hopefully the ERD stone will stick around for a few days too!

Out of interest, all - how do you get around it when a vendor has been really helpful, brought stones in for perusal, then you turn them down after all their trouble? I am feeling anticipatory guilt already! Everyone is so helpful!
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I know how you feel but its the nature of the beast and the vendors know that - as with everything you win some and you lose some. Also though, remember that if a vendor treats you well, even if you don't buy from them on this occasion, you might next time you are looking.
 
Date: 1/17/2010 6:42:30 AM
Author: pancake

Specs:

1.2-1.4-ish ct (originally thought maybe a bit bigger but I tried on a 1.6 yesterday and it looked kind of grotesque on my finger!)
Colour F-H
Clarity VS2 and above
L/W Ratio 1:4
Budget up to about $8500

Other little preferences - big windmills/clipped corners, maybe a 4 step pavilion

It's all kind of an ordeal; sometimes a really exciting/fun one, but at other times also really frustrating - we've only been looking for a week tomorrow!
Click to expand...

I know they're virtual stones so it's a bit risky to get them in because they might not look so great and you'll have to pay the return shipping, but I just did a search on Whiteflash and came up with these stones that I think have good numbers (they'll give you the pricescope discount if you ask for it and do a direct bank transfer):

http://www.whiteflash.com/emerald/Emerald-cut-diamond-2220239.htm
http://www.whiteflash.com/emerald/Emerald-cut-diamond-2179132.htm
http://www.whiteflash.com/emerald/Emerald-cut-diamond-2184645.htm
http://www.whiteflash.com/emerald/Emerald-cut-diamond-2222178.htm

Again, I'm no expert, just trying to help, maybe one or more of these might be worth getting in?
 
Lestat - of those, 3 were in the list of 5 stones that I included in my email to Traci at WF! :D

2 weeks ago the first (1.44 G VS1) was unavailable when they asked the supplier. I did ask in my last email if the fact it was still listed meant it was available again, but Traci didn't really answer that - or make any reference to the others I'd listed.

ETA: Hmmmm...I have the feeling that the F IF that I'm hoping to have brought in at WF is the "F VVS1" in that link - I have seen the GIA cert for the F IF and the dimensions are the same. Maybe it was mis-entered into the WF listing?
 
Here''s more, they''re close to your criteria:

http://www.whiteflash.com/emerald/Emerald-cut-diamond-2138792.htm

Found these on Excel Diamonds website, I believe they supply ASET images as well:

http://www.exceldiamonds.com/Loose_Emerald_Cut_Diamond-166/Loose_Emerald_Cut_1.2_Carat_G_Color_VS1_Clarity_diamond-329737.html
http://www.exceldiamonds.com/Loose_Emerald_Cut_Diamond-166/Loose_Emerald_Cut_1.2_Carat_E_Color_VS2_Clarity_diamond-403891.html

You might want to review their policies to make sure they cover everything you need before you consider them.
 
Today's update: stone from WF called in, will have photos and other data tomorrow.

Have more photos from ERD of stone 2 - the more I see it, the more I like it. Getting macro photos (top down, side on) and a full Sarin tomorrow.

pancaketrans.jpg
 
Different angle:

pancaketilt.jpg
 
Different angle:

pancaketilt.jpg
 
Oops, repeat post - how do I delete it?

Anyway - one more (Dan sent me 10 new photos today), tilted a little to the left:

pancaketiltleft.jpg
 
The more I see Stone 2, the more I love it...provided the Sarin checks out well, the only thing that will stop me from buying it is going to be if the WF one is sensational - and even then, only because the WF is slightly bigger
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Lestat - as an aside: did you get your stone appraised in the States prior to having Leon set it? Will you have to have the ring re-appraised in Australia in order to take out insurance?

We are tossing up whether to get our stone set in the US or whether to have the loose stone shipped here and then have it set at Holloway Diamonds. The obvious disadvantages to the latter are that a) we can''t insure the loose stone, and b) it''s much more expensive; but the disadvantages of having it set in the States are a) we don''t see the loose stone first, and b) presumably it is a little more difficult to work on the design process.
 
Yes, that one really is stunning! Nice windmills.
 
Sounds like you have some great options...can''t wait to see what you pick.
 
I know, I love those clipped corners
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The face up dimensions of this one are 7.26 x 5.12mm. The face up dimensions of the WF stone are 7.48 x 5.44. My finger size is a 4.5 - either would be a decent size on, wouldn''t it?

(Gosh...I am getting pathetic here! Humour me...)
 
Date: 1/18/2010 6:23:37 PM
Author: pancake
I know, I love those clipped corners
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The face up dimensions of this one are 7.26 x 5.12mm. The face up dimensions of the WF stone are 7.48 x 5.44. My finger size is a 4.5 - either would be a decent size on, wouldn''t it?

(Gosh...I am getting pathetic here! Humour me...)
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It''ll be a great size on you hands.

Just letting you know as a perspective from a fellow aussie - I had my ering ring made in Australia because I wanted more control over the design and setting process as it is going to be a "forever ring" - if you know what I mean. Nothing can really replace face to face contact with a jeweller. It also gave access to better follow up services such as complementary polishing and replatting every 18 months (Australian Jewellers tend not to offer this service for free like in the US where you can take in your rings purchased for elsewhere to get polished for free in the hopes that they will get your buisness - well that''s the impression I get from reading other PSers posts so correct me if i''m wrong).

Another reason is because I know i''m a bit of a perfectionist. I wasn''t compeletely happy after it was first set, and by having it done locally, I was able to make an appointment and address my concerns with the jeweller in person. They were then able to fix it within 2 days!!

I''m comfortable with buying gems and having them set in the US. I have in the past had the cutter ship it to the setter and then sent over to Aus and I''ve been more than happy with those experiences. (Not to mention that this worked out a lot cheaper!!) However, I was hesitant to do this with my ering because of the reasons above.
 
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