Help needed re colour question

[mattb]

Hi Guys, this is my first post so be gentle!

I have been looking for a diamond for a plat engagement ring for about a month and quite early on discovered Goodoldgold.com. Jonathon and this co seem to be highly regarded and having seen from loose stones in a London Hatton Garden shop i actually decided i might be safer buying with his help over the internet.

Anyway Jonathon has recommended a I coloured VS2 stone as being a great buy- it featuring very very well in the Brilliance Scope (scoring at the far end of very high in all 3 areas). The stone iam looking at is just over the 1 carat.
Jonathon does not think i should have any worries about the stone appearing at all yellowy but i am not 100 % convinced. The Hatton Garden jeweller i saw only sold e,f and g''s and was dismissive of anything higher up the alphabet.
I would be very grateful for anybody else''s experience with this kind of stone or any other advice they might have about colour. I just dont want to buy something that will not look on its own less than a pure white.

Thanks

Matt

 

[lmurden]

Hi,

I have a diamond pendant and diamond earrings and they are all I color and SI-1 clarity and look like ice!

However from my understanding if you want to be safe with platinum go for a H color and your ring will be absolutely beautiful as long as it's a GIA or AGS stone.

Bye.

 

[mattb]

Would it help if i posted a link to the actual stone?

 

[verticalhorizon]

Matt,

Welcome. I understand your skepticism regarding color. I would certainly be dismissive of a lot of retail grade diamonds that weren't E, F, and G color too.

That's b/c most of those stones aren't nearly well cut as they should be. Most of those diamonds are cut solely to retain weight and not for beauty. Those diamonds will display their true color quite clearly.

A well cut diamond, hover near ideal proportions will do a much better job of masking body color, by more accurately reflecting light back to the viewer. If you had a hand mirror and were trying to get rescued off an island, do you think the rescue plane would be able to know what color glass the mirror was made of?

Also, you may want to consider that if you're only looking for a diamond slightly above 1ct (like 1.1ct) then maybe you should consider at least pricing out something slightly below (like 0.95ct). Sometimes the price difference can be noticible.

I have an I VS2 and I can't really tell what color it is. It's set in platinum.

 

[mattb]

Thanks for the replies guys.

PqCollectibles- thats a beautiful ring and if i had to guess the colour of that stone accroding to that shot of it i would have said it was an easy G. Thanks also for the link to that very good thread re colour.

You are right ref the stone at Good Old Gold that iam looking at.

I also thought the comment ref how well the stone is cut was spot on ref what it will reflect back to the eye.

Anybody care to cast an expert eye over Jonathons 1.04 vs2 and give me a second opinion?

 

[searcher]

How much is the price of a super ideal cut?




With this diamond, you have decided to invest in cut over color.


http://www.goodoldgold.com/1_04ct_i_vs2_h%26a.htm




A premium cut diamond in the same color will run $4287. $5286-4287 = $999


http://www.dirtcheapdiamonds.com/diamond_detail.cfm?did=2174103&ref=PS622




A premium cut diamond in an F color from the same vendor is $5246


http://www.dirtcheapdiamonds.com/diamond_detail.cfm?did=2185156&ref=PS622




In this case, cut costs $999 or three grades of color. Diamond #1 will look bigger and sparklier. Diamond #3 will look cooler and whiter. It's up to you.

 

[researcher]

Cut, for me is the most important "C". With the stone you're considering, the "I" will face up extremely white (I purchased an "I" "SI1" and it's amazingly white (also had people think it's a "G"). I say go for it! There's nothing that will compare with a perfectly cut stone

 

[mattb]

Thnaks for the replies. Like everyone says- diamond buying is a personal thing. I just wanted to avoid staring at the stone in different lights for the next 10 years and thinking "i should have gone for a G."

 

[purduephotog]

----------------
On 6/17/2004 5:06:33 AM mattb wrote:

Thnaks for the replies. Like everyone says- diamond buying is a personal thing. I just wanted to avoid staring at the stone in different lights for the next 10 years and thinking 'i should have gone for a G.'----------------

You've got to be very careful with that logic. See my earlier post about F/G colour- I came from a store that put up F and G stones side by side (as well as an H) and .... dang. Those were all YELLOW. If you follow the logic I was falling into I wouldve been up to a D colour (and I was looking at them, to the annoyance of the pscope vendors I'm sure)

Course it still warrants a second visit, but that 'H' used for comparision didn't have a cert. Maybe it was a 'scare stone'

to help me separate myself from my wallet.

Of course the next store pulled out an M stone (M!) from a blue tissue papered packet and set it down. Thing looked white. Very clever technique to take advantage of the initial colour adaptation/over sensitization by using blue to 'force' your eyeballs towards neutral, thus cleaning up the stone. Once you see it in regular light it won't look so yellow anymore because the memory of the initial perception lasts. I don't particularly like that use of the human visual model, but hey, we do it in photos all the time

OK back to my work....

 

[mattb]

http://www.goodoldgold.com/1_04ct_i_vs2_h%26a.htm

It would mean alot if any experts out there would care to cast an eye and give me another opinion.

Regards

 

[WinkHPD]

I will not take the time to go look, but I will give you my opinion.

Many many of my clients prefer a warmer stone, many many prefer the higher colors. However, MOST of my in house clients can not tell the difference between a D and a G in normal lighting and many can not see the difference between a D and an I unless I teach them how to look through the side of the stone.

A few can see it instantly and I had one tell me that a GIA F was not as good as the other GIA F that we were looking at. I could not, with my eyes, see any difference, yet I believe him that he could.

Just for the record, Rhino (Jonathon) is a competitor of mine. I trust him to give you accurate information about the numbers and the appearance of this stone. If he says it looks hot and pegs the scales on his machines, then you can be confident that it looks hot and pegs the scales! Besides, I believe if you ask him to send it to you and you do not like it that you can return it for a full refund.

My comment is to bring the stone in, look at it, and decide if YOUR eyes agree with his eyes. Most often they will, unless you are one of those rare people with especially sharp visual acuity and discernment of color.

Wink

 

[tomatoe]

Since there are more colour questions now, I decided to take some pics of my stone pavilion side down and lying on its side on white paper. In the second pic, reflections of the yellow ring can be seen in the stone which makes it appear to be have a yellowish hue but the stone itself is colourless.

It is a 0.71ct J with strong blue fluor Regent and more pictures can be seen here

 

[mattb]

Wink,
Thanks for some reassuring comments. I have no reason to doubt Jonathons honesty or integrity and i hope that my posting here ref this stone does not suggest this.

I am sure that is not the case as most people must be able to identify with that added degree of anxiety one feels when buying a very high value item, without specialist knowledge or experience and from several thousand miles away.