Help, please, Kenny and Tristan -- small amber FIC!

[Blue-Seeker]

Help, please. I'm looking for a small -- about 10 points -- fancy color diamond. The color I'm looking for is a warm amber. Chocolate diamonds are too brown. Yellow diamonds are too pale. The color I'm looking for is the color of an aged Scotch whisky. I think Cognac would be a similar color. I thought I saw a link to a German (?) company with a large selection of FICs. But I can't find the thread. Can anyone help me out?

Thank you, thank you!

 

[acebruin]

i would look for fancy orange brown diamonds... might be the closest to the color of scotch...

 

[Enerchi]

Geez... i don't know about the diamond, but what time does the bar open and can I get a front row seat??? That looks like a great party you are going to throw!!!

 

[acebruin]

http://www.fancydiamonds.net/view_diamonds/3778.htm
http://www.fancydiamonds.net/view_diamonds/4181.htm

smallest i see on leibish... the problem you'll have is size... brown diamonds are so cheap, there won't be anyone cutting a 10 pt stone! it's just not cost effective... so i would look for an orange stone... main color orange with brown and / or yellow modifiers... check out leibish and click on orange diamonds... the 2 above are the smallest i see that has a warmer orange...

 

[acebruin]

here's a nice one... but it ain't a 10 ptr... what's your budget btw? i don't know if you'll find anything in the 10 ptr range...

http://www.fancydiamonds.net/view_diamonds/5436.htm

again your best chance is to look for an orange stone... deep saturation i think... to achieve the "scotch" color... there's no such thing as cognac as a color per GIA nor amber nor chocolate...

 

[Blue-Seeker]

Thank you, acebruin. The orange range does seem to be the closest. But orange with a lot of brown -- maybe that will decrease the price! True orange diamonds are pretty pricy. I think I found the site I was looking for http://www.langerman-diamonds.com/. Africa Gems seems to be calling their orange-brown diamonds "cognac." In small sizes anyway. Has anyone purchased from them?

 

[Blue-Seeker]

Geez... i don't know about the diamond, but what time does the bar open and can I get a front row seat??? That looks like a great party you are going to throw!!!

How I wish that was my own Scotch collection! We have one lonely bottle of Macallan that I'm using for color reference

 

[Blue-Seeker]

http://www.fancydiamonds.net/view_diamonds/3778.htm
http://www.fancydiamonds.net/view_diamonds/4181.htm

smallest i see on leibish... the problem you'll have is size... brown diamonds are so cheap, there won't be anyone cutting a 10 pt stone! it's just not cost effective... so i would look for an orange stone... main color orange with brown and / or yellow modifiers... check out leibish and click on orange diamonds... the 2 above are the smallest i see that has a warmer orange...

Thanks for the links. Those are both beautiful, and pretty close to the color I'm looking for. The size is going to be a problem. This diamond will be flush-set in a wide band, and I've got to keep the depth @ 1.5.

 

[Blue-Seeker]

here's a nice one... but it ain't a 10 ptr... what's your budget btw? i don't know if you'll find anything in the 10 ptr range...

http://www.fancydiamonds.net/view_diamonds/5436.htm

again your best chance is to look for an orange stone... deep saturation i think... to achieve the "scotch" color... there's no such thing as cognac as a color per GIA nor amber nor chocolate...

My budget -- sorry, I should have included that. I want to stay under $500, and I need to make sure the stone is not too deep. So I'm looking for something big enough to register as "amber" in color, but small enough to be set flush into my band. Thank you for the links and for the information on GIA. What is the deal with all the chocolate diamonds I see in Levian jewelery? Is that just a brand name for brown diamonds?

 

[Blue-Seeker]

I wonder if this will be too dark.http://www.langerman-diamonds.com/shop/diamond/3439/Brown-diamond-Round-012-ct-polished_Diamond

 

[minousbijoux]

I can't believe Kenny hasn't weighed in yet - I'm sure he'll be along some time soon. In the meantime, you might also want to contact Leibish directly. They are really approachable (I naively contacted them once about a large orange diamond not realizing its rarity and thinking a "call for price" might mean it was several thousand dollars. I received the nicest reply email in which, in a completely non-condescending way, they explained the rarity of orange diamonds and the price of almost $800,000 if memory serves). They may have others they can recommend to you, as you seem to be drawn to medium toned (don't know diamond terminology for it) brownish orange. In fact, its almost like what you seek is an orangish brown diamond.

 

[kenny]

Hi. (What does FIC stand for?)
Unfortunately various sellers call them various things, chocolate, cognac, champagne, beer, lager, whatever, etc.
GIA does not use those terms.
The GIA hues in descending price are:

Orange
Yellow
Brown

The more Orange it has the more costly it will be.
The more Brown is has the less costly it will be.

If a diamond has two hues GIA will place it into one of four categories based on how much of each color the diamond has.
For example here is the order, from least Yellow to most Brown:

Yellowish Brown (least expensive of the four)
Yellow Brown
Brown Yellow
Brownish Yellow (most expensive of the four)

Yellow is a more expensive hue than Brown so I believe the more Brown the lower the cost.
You might even find a Pinkish Brown or Olive Brown that steals your heart.

I have only bought from Leibish.
If you want to search their large inventory look on the right side of www.fancydiamonds.net then click on ADVANCED SEARCH.
Enter your specs.

Also you can call or email Leibish and have them find something for you.
Perhaps they have access to some that are on on their website.
I'm sorry I have no experience with Langerman.

 

[acebruin]

I wonder if this will be too dark.http://www.langerman-diamonds.com/shop/diamond/3439/Brown-diamond-Round-012-ct-polished_Diamond

is it going to be bezel set? remember deep and dark are what they say, deep or dark... brown is naturally on the darker side... so i think the stone in question will be too dark for a bezel set... just my opinion... i seriously think you need to find an orange diamond with brown modifier to lower the price... any brown diamond with orange modifier might be too dark for you... again just my opinion...

 

[TristanC]

Hi, just saw this thread. Hmm, I've looked over at what Leibish has on inventory. Whilst I am very very sure that there are any number of stones with a beautiful aged single malt colour, none of them might fulfill your desires in terms of the size and function.

Browns are seldom cut to that specific size range.

What I would actually do is to just shoot Leibish an email, telling them what you need the stone for, and the approximate budget (it sounds reasonable to me for the size that you want) and see what they can do to for you.

With browns, they do a large number of sales to trade and non individual customers. They were kind enough to share with me some stones that they thought matched my search when i was looking for a brown (champagne) recently, and they said that they had more inventory of browns than what they put on the website.

I'm fairly confident that you could be assisted quite well by them. Good luck!

 

[davi_el_mejor]

This is the ebay vendor I get most of my fcd's from. By FIC do you mean Fancy Intense Chocolate/Cognac? Because GIA will not give a diamond with any brown modifier the descriptor of Intense or Vivid. Brown in of itself is not a color, but a level of saturation in the oranges/yellows/reds/pinks/purples. They will be graded either fancy light, fancy, fancy deep or fancy dark.

I have bought 5 from him. The two I've sent off to GIA have come back natural. The first is a fancy deep brownish yellow

This was listed as golden yellow.

This is my latest GIA Fancy brownish orangy Yellow. Sold as Fiery Golden Yellow



This is my current ring stone. Listed as you guessed it Golden. I didn't send it to GIA but I would call it a Fancy Deep yellowish Brown



I would watch these 4 auctions as they come closer to ending and bid accordingly.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FIERY-BRIGH...7589588?pt=Loose_Diamonds&hash=item2318107ed4

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SPARKLING-B...7995164?pt=Loose_Diamonds&hash=item256af1661c

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FIERY-FANCY...3100140?pt=Loose_Diamonds&hash=item2a178330ec

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FIERY-BRIGH...3109224?pt=Loose_Diamonds&hash=item2a17835468

 

[LD]

For this colour PLEASE do not buy from Langhams or Leibish. Both companies are excellent but the colour you're looking for is plentiful. As mentioned above, the best place to buy will be from Ebay. Just make sure the seller is reputable (check their feedback and returns policies) and look for one that has good clarity. FYI brown diamonds are generally not treated BUT do make sure you check for clarity enhancement and weed those out (if you're not a fan of that). Search using the words chocolate, champagne, brown and cognac (which will probably turn up the most). Don't use the word amber as this is not generally used when talking about brown diamonds.

Is this the colour you're looking for?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/0-44-Carat-Cognac-VS2-Natural-Certified-Round-Loose-Diamond-Ideal-Cut-/110800996072?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19cc4106e8 Please note this diamond has been clarity enhanced and I'm only showing it for colour purposes.

Here are two of mine. The pear (1ct) was sold as "dark brown" but it has tons of fire and has orange red and yellow hues. It's one of the few browns I own that looks ok in white gold. The oval is about .75ct (can't remember now) and it is a little disco ball. What I would say is that you need to pick the colour gold really carefully. Some browns can stand on their own with white gold but others look insipid and cold. Yellow gold typically works better with them.

 

[LD]

How about this? You get 2 x .10ct so you'd have double what you're looking for.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/0-20-CT-NATURAL-Untreated-ROUND-Cut-VVS-COGNAC-Loose-DIAMOND-PAIR-2-X-3-0-MM-SET-/230723246488?pt=Loose_Diamonds&hash=item35b82d5998

Looks like a stock photo so I'd be tempted to ask the seller if he/she has actual pictures.

 

[davi_el_mejor]

Just to help out with a visual on what LD was saying about browns in gold. Here's my deep yellowish Brown in 18kt. It went from a sweet chocolatey morsel to an in your face copper.

 

[Blue-Seeker]

Wow -- thank you all so very much for your help.

minousbijoux: $800,000? I think I would have fallen off my chair! But I love that they were so gracious; that is a sign of a good business, in my opinion. Yes, "orangish brown" sounds right to me.

Kenny: "FIC" was a typo. Sorry -- confusing! I meant FCD. Thank you for the clear explanation of GIA color grading for fancy colors. That is really helpful, especially when comparing GIA's terminology to vendor terminology -- I'd love a beer-colored diamond, but I'm thinking lager not porter .

acebruin: Yes, it will be flush-set, level with the band. I probably need to find something in the medium brown range.

Tristan: It certainly sounds like Leibish will be able to interpret my color request, which is great. They probably won't even think it's too weird that I'm looking for a diamond the color of a single malt scotch.

davi: Thank you. "FIC" was a typo. I meant "FCD" but yes, I was thinking "intense" in terms of saturation. I guess it make sense that brown is considered a modifier not a color in FCDs -- the same as colored gemstones. I never considered ebay. Thanks for the links. I like all of your stones. The second photo is very similar to the color I'm looking for. It's obvious that I need some orange in the stone to give it the warmth I'm looking for and avoid a dull muddy look. I just looked at the photo of your chocolate morsel, and, wow, it looks amazing set in yellow gold. What a difference. I love the coppery color -- that's the color I want. The interaction of metal-diamond-color is something I need to consider. This diamond will be set in a wide, brushed sterling silver band. So I won't get a color boost from yellow metal.

LD: Your photos are very helpful because I will be setting this small diamond in white metal. The clarity-enhanced diamond you linked is close to the color I'm looking for, but I actually like the color of your pear better. It seems warmer to me. I think "cognac" or "copper" are pretty accurate color descriptors. So a warm brown, not a grey brown maybe? This is going to be harder than I thought! I have looked at the Africagems site, and they sell individual cognac diamonds. I read a few older threads on PS that said that Africagems is good about answering questions. Their prices are certainly reasonable. The pair of .10s on ebay that you linked are also a possibility, but yes, I'd definitely want to see more photos.

Thanks again, everyone for your suggestions. I've learned a lot about FCDs. I'm very happy to be starting with the inexpensive browns. I'd love an orange diamond (maybe if I win the lottery lol).

Here is some more information about my setting. The center stone is an unheated Umba sapphire from Spectral gems that is a color shifter (red-purple to violet-blue). The sapphire has copper in it, and in certain lights the very edges of the sapphire look, well, coppery! kind of a soft ginger color. I thought a small cognac diamond would accent the copper in the stone. The prongs holding the sapphire are rose gold. So the little diamond will tie the blue and the coppery colors together. The contrast of the white metal with the sapphire and the rose gold prongs is striking. Though I did consider having the entire ring made in rose gold. I still can; it hasn't been cast yet. The ring is similar to this design by J. Albrecht, without the skinny band. The diamond in my band will be a bit bigger than the accent stone in the J. Albrecht ring:

 

[acebruin]

hey i just remember, david at DBL has a parcel of beautiful brownish orange asschers right now... they might be double your budget but they're gorgeous! you might want to contact him...

**edited by moderator. please upload photos to forum directly**

 

[beau-wy]

This is a cool shape, nice color and 1.6 depth.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/0-19-Carat-Rare-Deep-Brownish-Orange-Shield-Cut-Diamond-/330581386172?pt=Loose_Diamonds&hash=item4cf82fa3bc

 

[Rockdiamond]

Thanks Ace!
Blue- with stones in the amber range the amount of orange makes a huge difference in value
In terms of physical depth- many of the deepest colored stones are on the deep side. If color is the main goal, you might consider deeper stones
Of course with a limited budget you may not have a lot of choices
Best of luck!! Its fun looking for fcd's!!