GIA Reports

[dpe49]

Lack of a healthy secondary market is by design. (DeBeers) It keeps the market free from over supply and supports higher prices on new product. Cartel marketing at its best!

 

[WinkHPD]

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On 5/18/2004 9:29:47 AM strmrdr wrote:

al:
Your missing that lifetime upgrade policies dont usualy cost the dealer anything as long as the price of diamonds keeps increasing they wont lose a dime and that is what they are betting on.
The lower the margin they work under the more generous they can be with them and still make close to the same amount of money.
Lets say they operate on 25% margins it takes a lot less time for the price increases to reach 25% than 100% just in the last year its been what a 10%-15% increase?
A dealer could buy a diamond back at what someone paid for it a year ago, sell it and still make a profit.
Great incentive to keep the prices high isnt it?

Hmm. I guess I will chime in here. In my pre internet retail world I always offered a trade up at what ever the current market is today. You bought it at 10k from me and now it is worth 12k I would give you 12k on the trade. Conversely, if it is only worth 8k today I would give you the 8k on the trade. Of course the stone you are trading for will be priced at today's market also.

The Japanese discovered the problems with "Diamonds always go up" and what happens when you offer lifetime buy back at the original cost. Many of the biggest names in Japanese retailing went bankrupt when Japanese buyers flooded back to get their money back when their economy went sour, and a great marketing ploy became an unmitigated disaster.

At today's markups, I may not be in a cash position to take back your 50k stone at the 56k it is worth to trade it up for a 200k stone, because on todays internet markups the profit on that 200k stone might be only 5 - 15k. Yes, as you stated, I can resell the stone for retail, but how many 50k stones will I sell this month? (Hint: I have sold less than ten in my entire career, remember I live in Boise, Idaho so my market for large stones is severly limited.)

So, while it may be to my advantage as far as making up the difference in the margin and the cost, the cash flow can be a HUGE negative. My bank is not interested in flooring the stone for me the way they would for a car, since it does not require a title to take it away from my store. In practical terms, the lower margins hurt me a lot in the cash flow department and if you wanted to trade in a large stone in July, I would be a LOT less happy to see you than in January when cash reserves are high.

Wink

 

[strmrdr]

hehehehe wink any time I make a statement am I going to have to say I bet wink does this another way,,,
Its all kewl your aok for a diamond dealer.
Id buy diamonds from you if you offered as much info as Rhino does or if id be happy with less info.
Id buy some gemstones from you anytime I had the $$$.

Thank you for the thoughtfull and informative replies!
Same to everyone else that replied to this thread.

 

[WinkHPD]

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On 5/18/2004 3:01:35 PM strmrdr wrote:

hehehehe wink any time I make a statement am I going to have to say I bet wink does this another way,,,

Its all kewl your aok for a diamond dealer.

Id buy diamonds from you if you offered as much info as Rhino does or if id be happy with less info.

Id buy some gemstones from you anytime I had the $$$.


Thank you for the thoughtfull and informative replies!

Same to everyone else that replied to this thread.



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Thanks for the nice words. Unlike Rhino however, I have a life and try to only work 80 hours per week. So if you want leventy seben pictures, graphs, test results and tetanus shots then He is definately the way to go. I am convinced that he has a time machine in the back room so that he can slip off somewhere for a couple of weeks and do the work 'cause there just aint no way one guy is doing all of that his own sweet self without one.

Me, I just get GIA's, AGS, the occassional PGS papers, slap 'em in the firescope to confirm they are what they are supposed to be cut wize then under the scope for a quick check to make sure that the paper and the stone matches and that it is not a "lucky" cert. A visit to my color master set finishes the check in proceedure and then it is on to the next one. As I said, no more than 80 hours a week or mama gets cranky.

The exceptions to that are the EightStars which come with their own secondary cert and which I have never found even one of that did not display a perfect firescope image and the Venus by Infinity cuts that I get from Paul Slegers. He puts up a page or two on each stone with all of the Sarin Data and with his recent stones its Gemprint image. He will be here later this week and one of the things I will be doing with him is learning how to access all of the data that he puts up on his site so that I can share it with you on mine.

I am at home grabbing a quick bite (I spelled it byte before I remembered that food has nothing to do with computers) and do not have a link handy or I would put it up for you to go see what he does. Clients coming in later so maybe Paul will stop by and post one. I was very glad to see that he posts here regularly.

Okay. I lost the first version of this when I tried to insert a smiley. whole thing just dissapeared. No more smileys for me. Does anyone know what I did wrong?

Wink

 

[noobie]

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On 5/17/2004 9:21:05 AM noobie wrote:

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On 5/17/2004 1:31:46 AM Cut Nut wrote:







Besides a 10 year old GIA SI2 would be likely to be todays SI1.

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Why is that? Are grading standards less strict now?

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Can anyone answer this? Are grading standards lower today than they were ten years ago? Or has the GIA changed they way they define SI and SI2, I guess in fact lowering the grading standards.

If this is true, does it mean that 10 year old stones would receive a higher clarity grade today and hence be worth more? (Notwithstanding the whole retail/wholesale discussion here, I mean in general)

Thanks

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Below VS2 and above I2 I have seen compelling evidnece that this is true from a number of stones resubmitted by the Austrailan Valuers organisation (Appraisers)

 

[hoorray]

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On 5/18/2004 3:30:57 PM Wink wrote:

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Okay. I lost the first version of this when I tried to insert a smiley. whole thing just dissapeared. No more smileys for me. Does anyone know what I did wrong?

Wink----------------

Wink -- are you using Netscape? I had to switch to IE last time Leonid upgraded the site. I think I had similar problems with smilies with netscape, along with a few other features that didn't work so well. It was painful, but I bit the bullet and switched (just for this site.)

 

[noobie]

Thanks, I guess I should be glad that I (my wife to be more precise) own a ten year old SI2 ... to be regraded SI1

 

[WinkHPD]

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On 5/19/2004 5:01:27 PM lop wrote:

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On 5/18/2004 3:30:57 PM Wink wrote:

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Okay. I lost the first version of this when I tried to insert a smiley. whole thing just dissapeared. No more smileys for me. Does anyone know what I did wrong?

Wink----------------

Wink -- are you using Netscape? I had to switch to IE last time Leonid upgraded the site. I think I had similar problems with smilies with netscape, along with a few other features that didn't work so well. It was painful, but I bit the bullet and switched (just for this site.)


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Yes, at home I most frequently use Netscape. I prefer it, but more and more programs don't work well with it, including my own website...

Wink

P.S. Thanks for clueing me in!

 

[strmrdr]

yea this site dont like mozilla or netscape but i wont use anything else so i put up with the limitations like no smilleys ... o well

 

[valeria101]

How did I miss this?

Strm, does your post have anything to do with the "Diamond Invention" book by Edward Epstein ? I definitely remember his "market overhang" and related concepts...

 

[strmrdr]

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On 5/20/2004 6:19:34 AM valeria101 wrote:




How did I miss this?


Strm, does your post have anything to do with the 'Diamond Invention' book by Edward Epstein ? I definitely remember his 'market overhang' and related concepts...



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That and other sources yes.
I spent a lot of time verifying a lot of his stuff and a lot of it has been verified by the experts here either directly or indirectly.

http://edwardjayepstein.com/diamond/prologue.htm

 

[WinkHPD]

Is the author mentioned the same one who wrote a book in the late seventies, early eighties about the coming collapse of the diamond market?

If so he has been trying to hasten the demise of diamonds for a LOOONNNGGGGG time.

I wish him no more success now than he had then. I love these sparkleys and the joy that they bring to my clients.

Wink