Have to tell y''all my experience today in DD

[NewYorker]

I just have to share - I was in the diamond district in Manhattan today and brought my loupe and Ideal Scope.
I went to the guy I usually buy melee diamonds from and asked to see some bigger ones. I got to check out a .25 carat and a .50 carat. Clarity and color were fine - nothing to write home about. BUT, viewing them through the Ideal Scope showed a lot!

These were cut so badly!!! Now I know why he sells them to me so cheaply. He had never seen the Ideal Scope before so I showed it to him and he looked at one of his diamonds through and handed it promptly back to me saying, "it''s not my color." HA! I think he was wishing I would vanish on the spot and take my ideal scope with me.

BTW, I did end up getting the .25 carat one anyway because it still looked sparkly and clean and was only $150, but the .5 carat one - it was noticeable how bad the cut was even though it was sparkly. (those were $450 each H color, SI1). I thought "great! a pair of studs for $900 and .5 carats each! - but you get what you pay for and I was NOT about to pay anything for those.

So, moral of the story is - don''t leave home without your Ideal Scope and loupe and don''t be afraid to use them! (oh, I didn''t even need any additional lighting to use it either!)

 

[Rhino]

Hi NY'er!

After youv'e spent some more time in the dd with your idealscope come pay us a visit (if you're in the neighborhood) and fasten your seatbelt.

Rhino

 

[elmo]

What someone needs to do when shopping for $900 studs is to sit down with the idealscope and a parcel of a hundred or so of these cheap Indian H-SI1s. Something tells me that although you wouldn't need a seatbelt

you could find something pretty decent for studs at 1/2 the price of the radioactive-glow-in-the-dark h&a fireballs.

 

[diamondlil]

Wow, sitting down with a parcel of stones to pick out 2 for studs sounds like fun to me. Were would one go to do this?

I eventually would like to get a really nice pair of RB stones (.90 to 1.0 each), and sorting through 100-ish to find the right parir would make my purchase that much more gratifying.

Diamondlil

 

[NewYorker]

hey, Rhino, I'm sure I'll make it over to you someday. I loathe LI though. Oh, sure, it's fine if you live and work there, but to visit is less than enjoyable. I've never not hit bad traffic. I love your directions on your site though with pics of the signs on the road. I thought that was clever.
Yes, I will treck out there one day - I have to start meditating now in preparation for the traffic I'll encounter.
(oh, I can be sooo dramatic I know!)

 

[elmo]

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On 9/13/2003 8

4:53 AM diamondlil wrote:

Wow, sitting down with a parcel of stones to pick out 2 for studs sounds like fun to me. Were would one go to do this?

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Sure, it would be fun. I would have also hoped though that some of the retailers here would have done that legwork for us (isn't there a diamond dealer's club there for the trade for this sort of thing?), but it seems like everyone here wants to exclusively sell superexpensive superideals. What's wrong with a couple of decent looking hand-picked 60/60 H-SI1 good/good 40 pointers for a under thousand bucks for studs, instead of a couple of two-three thousand dollar ISEE2 9.8s? The danger you might face is that the retailer merely says 'sure I handpicked these just for you' while randomly taking from that parcel of mostly-lousy goods, i.e. without really doing the legwork, but with the great reputations here you'd think there'd be a nice handpicked selection at the low-end as well. There's certainly a market for it, but I haven't seen it though.

 

[NewYorker]

I'm with Elmo.

 

[valeria101]

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On 9/13/2003 8 04 53 AM diamondlil wrote:

Wow, sitting down with a parcel of stones to pick out 2 for studs sounds like fun to me. Were would one go to do this?
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Hm... This is a tough one. I strongly beilieve that NO ONE thought that allowing customers to shift through stones is a goos marketing idea. You may get to choose among parcels of colored stones (not really 100 pieces, and not that often) if you buy from smaler, less formal places, somewhere in SE Asia or at random dealers not established at all. Well, looking at dozens of diamonds side-by side was a hard to find (now unrepeatable) opportunity for me. If anyone knows a receipe for geting such an experience without having to train as a jeweler first, I'd be delighted too!

Thanks for mentioning this!

 

[Bagpuss]

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On 9/13/2003 10:37:56 AM elmo wrote:

----------------
On 9/13/2003 8

4:53 AM diamondlil wrote:

Wow, sitting down with a parcel of stones to pick out 2 for studs sounds like fun to me. Were would one go to do this?

----------------

Sure, it would be fun. I would have also hoped though that some of the retailers here would have done that legwork for us (isn't there a diamond dealer's club there for the trade for this sort of thing?), but it seems like everyone here wants to exclusively sell superexpensive superideals. What's wrong with a couple of decent looking hand-picked 60/60 H-SI1 good/good 40 pointers for a under thousand bucks for studs, instead of a couple of two-three thousand dollar ISEE2 9.8s? The danger you might face is that the retailer merely says 'sure I handpicked these just for you' while randomly taking from that parcel of mostly-lousy goods, i.e. without really doing the legwork, but with the great reputations here you'd think there'd be a nice handpicked selection at the low-end as well. There's certainly a market for it, but I haven't seen it though.
----------------

Oh, how I agree. Not every diamond is destined for an e-ring and though you may want a pretty, sparkly one, you don't want to pay through the nose for it.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

thanks NY'er - glad you had some fun and learing.

If you would all go into retailers and dealers with your ideal-scopes and look at as many of their diamonds (loose and set) then you can help contribute to my goal - to create a ground swell to change the way diamonds are cut.

The trade only understands one thing really well - the fear of lots of lost sales!

And BTW NY'er - when you hold stones loose / unset in tweezers the light caan get in the back and will come out as fire in deep diamonds. When looking at them from 12 inches or so - sit them in the groove between your fingers or cup your hand and stop the light entering the rear.

 

[Rhino]

Belive me Elmo, Bagpuss, NY'er I hear you guys loud and clear. Here's the problem though. Most wholesalers do not have Sarins or IdealScope or any tools for the job at hand. When you consider that less than 5% of the diamonds in the market have an HCA of less than 2 that means that we'd have to pay shipping on 100 diamonds to find 4-5 good stones.

Think of this scenario and put yourself in my shoes. Do I pay a little extra % more from a factory that consistently cuts the best goods all the time or do I pay round trip shipping on 100 diamonds and pray that a couple come in that will be as good?

Now what has to be charged for those stones to

a. cover your cost of the shipping of 100 diamonds
b. make a profit?

Guess what? You're at or more than likely OVER the cost of what an H&A is.

Which is more cost effective in the long run? Think about that.

Rhino

 

[pyramid]

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On 9/13/2003 7:32:15 AM elmo wrote:

What someone needs to do when shopping for $900 studs is to sit down with the idealscope and a parcel of a hundred or so of these cheap Indian H-SI1s. Something tells me that although you wouldn't need a seatbelt

you could find something pretty decent for studs at 1/2 the price of the radioactive-glow-in-the-dark h&a fireballs.

----------------

"radioactive" Elmo what do you mean by this? Are the stones being sold this?

 

[elmo]

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On 9/14/2003 7

5:32 AM pyramid wrote:

"radioactive" Elmo what do you mean by this? Are the stones being sold this?
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Absolutely not, not unless you're in the market for a black diamond

. It was a totally sarcastic remark aimed at the (admittedly) extra-special, burn-with-an-inner-fire superideals

.

Jon, I do understand and am not really criticizing...you and the other top dealers here excel in a different part of the market; I'd rather have you guys on the cutting edge of quality than to be simply ordinary or average the way most stores are.

My remarks are out of frustration that although I know where I send my friends to buy killer ideals at a fair price

, for my friends who are either cheap or don't care about the difference, I don't know anyone who culls through the junk to find something decent and pretty and non-ideal (probably half carat and less, without reports) at 40 back. I know it's out there because I see this stuff, someone just has to go looking for it and not take a 50% markup. But the market reality right now is that for close to the price of goods like that, they can buy the nice ideals from you guys.

 

[Bagpuss]

I'd like to be able to get hold of a 'good' quality diamond (about 60 points would be nice

) with a premium/very good cut as opposed to an ideal cut/hearts and arrows, assuming there would be a fair difference in the price I would pay compared to an ideal cut. However, I'll probably end up buying an ideal cut stone, as long as I don't have to pay a huge amount more, just to be sure that the stone is really going to sparkle.

It's not a matter of being cheap. For a smallish diamond that is going to go in a pendant, I don't see the point in paying over the odds for an ideal cut when I know that a well-cut stone would look very good and would cost me less.

It comes down to knowing which well-cut stone is the right one that will cost less but will still be sparkly.

Don't want much, do I?