Final run down for my diamond, advise please

[fsrick]

Thanks for everyone's help from my previous post.
After days of research, I finally narrow down my list to 3 diamonds:

JA 1.28 Carat E-VS2 HCA: 1.1 $15,070
http://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/E-VS2-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1363418.asp?b=16&a=12&c=77&cid=131
they only have heart picture for this one:.

JA 1.31 Carat G-VS2 HCA: 2.7 $12,020
http://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/G-VS2-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1360510.asp?b=16&a=12&c=77&cid=131

BGD 1.28 Carat F-VS2 HCA: 1.1 $14,829
http://www.briangavindiamonds.com/diamond/diamond-detail/?product_id=AGS-104051364016

15k is my budget. JA-1.31-G has very good price, but I do not mind to spend a little more for better quality if it is worthy (especially the BGD one looks pretty good to me). Any recommendations? any info will be helpful. I plan to purchase it within a couple days. Thanks.

 

[stone-cold11]

The JA E stone's hearts is at the borderline, cleft might be just a tad too big for standard H&A criteria, and slightly uneven in the hearts/chevron spacing and skew of the tip of the chevron. The JA G has a nice set of hearts.

The BGD stone either is not the best of BGD's lineup or the photo shot is not to their normal standard, IS shows some slight obstruction issue, hearts image is pixelated and not even, weird.

 

[tyty333]

I like the second JA or the BGD stone. If I had $15k I would go for a BGD blue...
http://www.briangavindiamonds.com/diamond/diamond-detail/?product_id=BLAGS-104052029015
http://www.briangavindiamonds.com/diamond/diamond-detail/?product_id=BLAGS-104052029012

 

[fsrick]

Yes, I agree that the JA E heart image is not very good.
So now the battle is between JA G and BGD F. Does the BGD one still look like to have a better cut than the JA G from their IS?
Or you guys think the difference does not worth the mark up.

Blue is not my girl's type, she is traditional :p

 

[farmer gal]

I don't know if it was me and I was spending that much money I would want to buy it from a company that has a excellent trade in policy like BGD or WF. Have you also looked at WF?

http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2564417.htm

http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2631624.htm

http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2631630.htm

this one may be worth it if it is eyeclean

http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2649053.htm

They have already stated this one is eyeclean. Me personally for 15k I would want to hit the 1.50 mark. But that's just me

http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2270384.htm

 

[fsrick]

I just called BGD, they said that the heart picture is very hard to take and it is blurry. But the cutting should be within their standard.

I think WF is more expensive than BGD in general. And VS2 is the lowest I want to go,G color and above is prefered. So not much left for this budget.

 

[fsrick]

I don't know if it was me and I was spending that much money I would want to buy it from a company that has a excellent trade in policy like BGD or WF. Have you also looked at WF?

http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2564417.htm

http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2631624.htm

http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2631630.htm

this one may be worth it if it is eyeclean

http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2649053.htm

They have already stated this one is eyeclean. Me personally for 15k I would want to hit the 1.50 mark. But that's just me

http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2270384.htm

the top 3 you listed are very good, but they are in 1.22 ct range, so it comes down to the size (1.22 to 1.2, color (G to F) and price (2k up) trade off.
I do not think the fourth one is eye clean, from the picture online, I can see some impurity/cloud right below the center.

 

[yssie]

Did you buy the BGD? It's listing as sold.

 

[fsrick]

I hold it, so it is listed as sold now. I also requested them to give me a better hearts picture. They said it might take a couple days.

Yssie, What do you think about the BGD diamond?

 

[yssie]

It looks like it will be a very pretty stone IRL - but I honestly think the BGD H&A inventory is such that you can go in and pick blindly and rest assured you will wind up with something that lives up to the BGD Signature brand expectations!

Agree w/ SC that the hearts pic is not of their usual quality, which is making it hard to judge - I can't tell whether the asymmetries are due to the pic quality or the subject of photography... a new hearts pic is a good idea. IS/ASET fine. JA G also looks nice all 'round - comes down to whether you prefer F or G, how you feel about the price difference, whether one vendor has the setting you prefer, if you think you'll take advantage of BGD's more generous upgrade/trade/buyback policies... if I had them both side by side I am certain that I could not pick one as objectively better cut/performing than the other, if that's what you're asking!

 

[fsrick]

It looks like it will be a very pretty stone IRL - but I honestly think the BGD H&A inventory is such that you can go in and pick blindly and rest assured you will wind up with something that lives up to the BGD Signature brand expectations!

Agree w/ SC that the hearts pic is not of their usual quality, which is making it hard to judge - I can't tell whether the asymmetries are due to the pic quality or the subject of photography... a new hearts pic is a good idea. IS/ASET fine. JA G also looks nice all 'round - comes down to whether you prefer F or G, how you feel about the price difference, whether one vendor has the setting you prefer, if you think you'll take advantage of BGD's more generous upgrade/trade/buyback policies... if I had them both side by side I am certain that I could not pick one as objectively better cut/performing than the other, if that's what you're asking!

there is one thing that Iam confused about the upgrade policy. if 1 year later, your diamond worths 5k more, but you upgrade it with the purchased price, is this still a fair deal? Or second hand diamond will worth a lot less?

 

[rubybeth]

It looks like it will be a very pretty stone IRL - but I honestly think the BGD H&A inventory is such that you can go in and pick blindly and rest assured you will wind up with something that lives up to the BGD Signature brand expectations!

Agree w/ SC that the hearts pic is not of their usual quality, which is making it hard to judge - I can't tell whether the asymmetries are due to the pic quality or the subject of photography... a new hearts pic is a good idea. IS/ASET fine. JA G also looks nice all 'round - comes down to whether you prefer F or G, how you feel about the price difference, whether one vendor has the setting you prefer, if you think you'll take advantage of BGD's more generous upgrade/trade/buyback policies... if I had them both side by side I am certain that I could not pick one as objectively better cut/performing than the other, if that's what you're asking!

there is one thing that Iam confused about the upgrade policy. if 1 year later, your diamond worths 5k more, but you upgrade it with the purchased price, is this still a fair deal? Or second hand diamond will worth a lot less?

That's the bummer about upgrade policies. It can be great if diamond prices take a dip, but it's not much help when diamond prices keep going up, except that you do retain the original price of your diamond toward an upgrade.

 

[fsrick]

Hearts pic updated by BGD, what do you guys think now?
http://www.briangavindiamonds.com/diamond/diamond-detail/?product_id=AGS-104051364016

 

[yssie]

pic still looks pretty pixellated, but that could be a number of things. Hearts pattern itself, which I'm sure is all you care about, looks fine

 

[fsrick]

actually, what do you guys mean the picture is pixelated? you mean the tip of the hearts are not sharp in the picture? I thought you guys meant the picture was blurry at the beginning.

 

[yssie]

that the lines aren't sharp - common problem when a picture is made/posted to web at too low resolution. It's a problem w/ printing the photo, or printing the photo to screen, not with the subject of photography (the hearts pattern in the stone). Like I said hearts pattern itself looks fine.

 

[fsrick]

understood. Thanks.
I think I will go for the BGD one even the price is hitting my threshold and I totally prefer G color instead for cheaper price. But when I show both JA and BGD stone, I can see that she loves the BGD one for whatever prime reasons (maybe it just looks better in the pictures). So I guess I will just go for the one she likes. God, cannot believe they just raise the price last Saturday.

 

[yssie]

Good luck
The way things are going better to buy now than even next saturday!

 

[fsrick]

From the IS image, it seems the center of the diamond is a bit off. the arrows in the bottom is longer than the ones on the top. is this a factor you guys will usually consider? (this probably will not affect my decision, just curious.)

 

[yssie]

From the IS image, it seems the center of the diamond is a bit off. the arrows in the bottom is longer than the ones on the top. is this a factor you guys will usually consider? (this probably will not affect my decision, just curious.)

Yeah - it is. Sometimes when they take the photos the diamond isn't *perfectly* centred on the divot, and if it's slightly tilted during photography so the scope isn't precisely perpendicular to the plane of the girdle it looks off-centre in the pic. Again, nothing to worry about (the IS tool tells you about the brilliance of the stone, in this case it's telling you about light return when the stone is slightly tilted, at maybe 1 or 2 degrees instead of horizontal, such a tiny tilt makes no real-world difference when we're extrapolating real-world appearance/performance from the pic)

 

[Amys Bling]

I think the BGD stone is a great choice.