GIA Mini Cert?

[m_clarkey1]

Hi everyone, I''ve been checking this site out a lot lately while my BF and I have been looking at diamonds. We found a princess cut that we really like (.77) but it only comes with a GIA Mini Certification??? Is this something we should be worried about or does it have to do with the fact that the diamond is under 1ct? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I don''t think the company is trying to hide anything, they''ve been extremely helpful and even lowered the price to a similiar diamond we found on bluenile.com, just wondering if we should push for a more detailed cert.
Thanks.

 

[pqcollectibles]

It's called a Dossier Cert and costs a bit less than a full blown GIA Cert.

With a princess cut, you really need to take a look at the AGA cut guidelines. Here's a link to the chart so you'll know what to look for.

http://diamonds.pricescope.com/fnc1.asp

When you contact the Vendor, get crown and pavillion %'s and angles, table and depth %'s, and girdle thickness. Ask for a Sarin/OGI and Ideal Scope images as well, to check for light leakage.

Princess diamonds can be tricky. A princess that meets Cut Class 1A guidelines can be a weak performer, while a Cut Class 2A is a dazzler. The guidelines are great, but ultimately the final test comes down to your eye.

 

[valeria101]

The GIA dossier does not hide much, except for the inclusions chart: if this stone is an SI2 you want to buy sight unseen and without a return option, this lack may be an issue otherwise the little cert is juts as good as the big

One thing though... in a princess cut, those angles (as mentioned in the post above) are not easy to read: there are no generally accepted (or any, as far as I know) rules to make a prediction on light return based on the stone's measurements.

So? The AGA charts (demanding just the crown and pavilion detpth aside the usually available table and total depth measurements) do help keeping stones who have no meaningful chance to look anything but "glassy" (with poor light return) out of the very top cut classes (top three, I would say). And this is all. Odd looking things can still make it throuhg the AGA test, since the chart does not account (not could it) for every aspect of the cut.

Only some test for light return on the very stone (IdealScope - the easiest, or Brilliancescope) may tell how the stone ranks in terms of light return against what the very design of the princess cut allows at it's best, if this is important to you.

More practically, some unusual cut parameters are supposed to be discounted for erring too much away from what the industry (based on the experience about average consumer opinions and technical considerations) believes it is best for this cut model. The AGA chart certainly weeds these out and helps one avoid paying for a generally undesirable stone, despite the buyer's lack of experience viewing diamonds.

This is just my 0.2, of course. I would be glad to give feedback on a specific stone, as most PS posters would, I am sure...