Help Finding a Diamond

[skydiver51]

Hello,

I am completely new to the art of diamonds and would love to have some help finding the best one in terms of value. My budget is around 4~5k Canadian.

I am looking for something around 1~1.2 carat, round, with good clarity, cut, and color. Should I be looking at E, very good cut, and VS1?

I looked around and found a couple that seems good but I don't know how to decide or how to tell if they are good value.

Thanks in advance.

https://www.brilliantearth.com/lab-diamonds-search/view_detail/8992956/

https://www.brilliantearth.com/lab-diamonds-search/view_detail/8922921/

 

[OoohShiny]

Welcome to the forum!

It is hard to know what is good value and what isn't in the world of MMD/Lab Grown Diamonds - there is no centralised register that lists prices (and therefore influences prices offered) so unfortunately we consumers have a lot of legwork to do

Check out some of the vendors in the List of MMD Sellers thread in this section of the forum, perhaps, to get an idea of prices on comparable stones.

Ritani helpfully lists out their costs to get stones in, and then their profit margin on the stones, so I find that useful in understanding other prices on other sites.


In terms of 'recommended' proportions for MRB stones, here on Pricescope I think it's fair to say that the following is generally given as a range within which one can find stones that have good scores (under 2.0-2.5ish) on the HCA tool (under the Tools tab at the top of the forum) and which therefore have angles and measurements that work well together and will give good light performance

Table - 54-59
Depth - 60-62.4
Crown angle - 34-35 degrees (up to 35.5 or 36 degrees with a shallow, i.e. 40.6 Pavilion)
Pavilion angle - 40.6 - 40.9 degrees

When crown angle increases, pavilion angle should decrease (at a rate of 0.5:0.1, IIRC??).


I believe one only has limited uses of the HCA tool before needing to pay, but the costs are quite small. Using the proportions above can get you 'in the ball park' and reduce the need to use HCA on stones with non-complementary angles.

In terms of colour and clarity, a well-cut stone will look bright and sparkly if it is cut well, which will hide the body colour in the face-up position. If a stone is going into a bezel setting, you can drop lower in colour because the stone is hidden from the side, which is where colour of the material can be more obvious.

That said, MMDs can have brown undertones in lower colours, which some people do not like. If you want to avoid that, in my personal opinion one should stick to D-F colours, as that minimises any risk of undertones being obvious.

In terms of Clarity, I am a clarity freak so prefer VVS and VS1 stones. VS2 and SI1 stones can be good options, though, but they take more searching through to find ones with no negative impacts.

The benefit of MMD stones is that overall prices are lower, so higher clarity does not command such a premium as one will find in Mined stones!