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Getting a diamond through a friend

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chudilo

Rough_Rock
Joined
Jun 16, 2005
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46
I''ve been reading this forum for a while. Looking for a diamond. Planning to pop the question sometime in late August.

I farely recently found out that my old friend started selling jewelry a few years back . (she used to work in the diamond district back in college). I bought a few things from her in last few months and so far everything''s been great. (possibly due to my ignorance. The only thing I do have is taste, at least I''d like to believe so)

Moving on to my dilema.
She offered to get a diamond for me, as she has done for a few of my old aquaintances back from school. I personally trust her. I don''t think she''d even consider screwing me over. However, being a bit paranoid about the whole retail buisness as a whole (from past jobs), I''m thinking that, as good as she might be, her knowelege is limited by what she was exposed to while working in the diamond district (NYC 47th St.)

She suposedly deals directly with "real wholesalers", which do offer considerable, but real (5-15%) discounts off Rapaport prices.

I''ve looked at a few diamonds that were within my requiremets which are:
Weight 1.25-1.40
Clarity: VS2-SI1
Color: G
Price: $7500-8000
With a good balance of fire & scentillation (thanks pricescope)

I''ve looked at a 1 carrat H&A which sparkled the most I''ve ever seen (and it had fingerprints on it and stuff)
So I started looking for H&A or something with great symetry.

Latest rock that she found is as follows. it''s a bit outside of my reqs. but I think it offers a great balalnce of value.
I''d like to ASK THE EXPERTS here, if this rock sounds as good as she''s making it out to be.
I''ve looked at the H&A lens and I can see all the hearts but those other elements under the hears vanish a bit too far from the hearts. The stone is not being sold as an H&A diamond , but as far understand it does say a lot about the quality of the cut.

GIA certified
Weight: 1.22
Clarity: VS2
Color: G
Depth: 60.9%
Table: 56%
Polish: Good
Florecence: none
Dimensions:6.88-6.92x4.20

The Total price that I am potentially getting it for is about $7700 which is about 12% lower then the Rapaport price (meaning that price is already multiplied by carrat weight)
 
You need more cut information for people here to give you an opinion on the stone. Try to get a sarin report and/or idealscope pictures to help evaluate the performance potential of the stone. A search here on AGS0 stones beings up a nice selection at just above this price. Thus, you can get well cut stoens for close to this amount, so I would make sure this one is a good performer, or I would look around at my options.
 
ditto what lop said... more info please!
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try to get at least get some crown/pavilion angles
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chudilo
you must compare it with the same cut quality. 12% back of rap means nothing if the stone is poorly cut.there are stones on e-bay selling for 30% back that i wouldn''t touch.

here''s a link to a nice cut 1.23ct G VS2.

http://www.goodoldgold.com/1_232ct_g_vs2_h%26a.htm

there''re other e-vendors here with beautiful cut stones.
 
Date: 6/16/2005 6:30:57 PM
Author: icekid
the price seems pretty reasonable, though as has been mentioned getting a bit more info would be helpful. but it definitely has the potential to be a nice stone. does it look good to you?

and just an FYI, but here is basically exactly what you want for $7267 with pricescope discount

http://www.whiteflash.com/diamonds/diamond_Details.aspx?itemcode=AGS-6117602

good luck
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Click to expand...
yes,i would definitly talk to WF about that stone.
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The seller said that she can only provide the information that is on the GIA report. She has no equipment of her own.

Wouldnt the fact that I can see ALL of the hearts by looking through the H&A lens mean that the cut is very very good? (that's what she says). i asked her to ask a few other dealers that she works with , everyone is saying that it 's a very very good cut. But I'm only going by what she said.

I have a very fancy Digital SLR camera. If I take a macro picture of the rock and measure the angles myself. Is that accurate enough? What If i take the picture in various light conditions: natural sun light, regular diffused incadecent, flourecent; you name it ? I can take a low res video of it too while rocking it side to side?

I looked at it under diffused flourecent light. It looks white on the inside. as if there was tin foil under it. I'm guessing that means good light return.

In the room with projector lighting even if I move the rock under the table with no direct light falling on it, I still see very bright colored facets. (my guess is it's from the light reflecting from the white walls in the apartment)

Again is there any way for me to provide more information to you guys without having the expensive equipment?
 
Will she let you take the stone to an independant appraiser, or can she do that for you???
 
I am sure she'll gladly let me take it to an appraiser. She could probably also take it to an appraiser for me. How much will the appraisal cost me ?
Edit: Nevermind I already found the answer to that on the forum apraisal is $150-200 which seems like i would be losing most of the benefit of going through the friend. except the trust we have.
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I also forgot to mention, The hearts are all very even but the outside part of it cuts into the heart pattern a little more then it should and the arrow that supposed to be under the heart vanishes just a little bit before the heart. meaning there is no hard edge to it. But they all do that identically, so the symmetry is very good. It's very close to the perfect pattern. But then again I'm not really looking for a perfectly cut stone, I'm looking for the amazing shine of the H&A cut (or one has nothing to do with the shine and I'm confused) She's not trying to say that this is an H&A cut ... she just says it's a very nice cut.

However you guys are saying that I can get a True H&A cut for a similar price. Would a true H& A be more shiny? or that only says that only reffers to the symmetry of the cut and only the angles tell you how much it will shine.

And again I know that seller can be trusted, so there is no concern about returning it if I discover something about it. But if she was lied to, that's another story. (I think she knows enough to know the difference), but she's ot THAT much of an expert on diamonds.
 
here s a picture that I took today under natural lighting. With an overcast sky.
one par tof report that I missed before .
Girdle: thin to medium., F

sunlight.jpg
 
One more with a flash

withflash.jpg
 
bump
 
I got someone to run a Sarin report for me.
Here is what came out.
AGS round Weight 1.227Ct
Diameter 6.90(6.88-6.93) 0.7
Total Dep. 4.22mm 61.2%
Table 3.85mm 55.8%
Crown 34.5 degrees (34.0-35.3 15.1%
Pavil 40.6 degree (40.1-41.1 42.8%
Culet 0.4 Very small
Girdle 1.7% 1.0%-2.2% (thin-sl.Thick) Medium
 
Those are nice numbers, apart from a bit of variation in the girdle, which could possibly explain the patterning deviations you noted. It sounds nice. Without seeing ASET/ideal-scope it's hard to say more about performance and without seeing H&A images the patterning can't be judged.

But wait! YOU have seen it, which is the most important thing
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If it dazzles you it passes the most important test of all.
 
Sometimes I think the number junkies are overkill:

The simplist way to see if a Round Brilliant or Princess cut is good is to look at it with an IdealScope.

If you are going to spend $7000 for a diamond, why not spend a few $ for the tools to properely eveluate it (and all future diamonds).

I think $30 buys you the basic one. Aproximately $100 buys you the professional one and the light table (not absolutely needed, but I highly recommend).

You can have it in a couple of days; click on the link under "tools".


Perry
 
Your description about optical symmetry (hearts) and the numbers and the price - everything sounds pretty good. Why not ? I can''t see why not... Compared to the two others (WF and GOG offers) yours sounds like a good deal too: having most of the bells and whistles just short of the premium carrying pedigree.

Just curious here: is this a stone that shows hearts and no arrows ? I can''t quite imagine what can give that without appropriate software at hand (it was left behind at home on my computer while I am travelling). Really, this is not good or bad, just my curiosity.
 
Perry: If I am talking about Hearts & Arrows on the diamond I obviously have already seen it through the ideal scope personally. What I Was saying is that I have no excess to the expensive electronics equipment that gives you the rest of the parameters.
Also Ideal scope only checks for hearts and arrows that tells you if the diamond is symmetric. But as everyone else has said symmetry adds a lot of price and does not necessarily result in a better sparkle.


Valeria101: I didn't say there were no arrows...
There are arrows.. They're All there.
In a couple of the arrowheads the bottom angles are a bit off but all arrows are there.
So again, the stone doesn't qualify for an H&A and is not being sold as such, (and the imperfections again seem to result from the girdle variation)

The rock is beatiful in person. I got complimented on my choice by the jeweler who's going to do the setting.
 
Date: 7/6/2005 9:29:23 AM
Author: chudilo

I got complimented on my choice by the jeweler who''s going to the the setting.
Click to expand...
Good for you ! It sounds like you really made proper use of all the chatter over cut and cut graingover here
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... as much as I can tell, which really isn''t all that much.
 
Chudilo:

An IdealScope does not show you the Hearts & Arrows pattern. It shows you the light return of the diamond. I have never seen a jewelry store with one.

A Symetry Scope (or other names) shows the Hearts & Arrows pattern, but not light return. Lots of jewelry stores have those; and based on your description this is what you have seen.

You can have a great H&A pattern, and a dud for light return.

You can have a dud H&A Pattern, and great light return.

You can have both a great H&A pattern, and great light return.

What makes the dimaond sparkle it the light return. No one is going to see from several feet away any remnants of a H&A pattern.

I still stand by my suggestion that you get an idealscope. Check out the PeatyPauls (spelling?) post on pictures on the ring on the finger.

Of course, if you really have all the details (a full sarin, or megascope) report - you can get an idea on the idealscope image by using programs like DiamondCalc.

I find it easier to just look at the diamond through the IdealScope.

Perry
 
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