shape
carat
color
clarity

HUGE Thank You to Wink and High Performance Diamonds--

ame

Super_Ideal_Rock
Joined
Jul 7, 2004
Messages
10,883
and to John Pollard, Paul Slegers, Jim Summa and Todd Gray for tolerating my craziness while I worked on this top secret project. Hopefully I wasn't too much of a burden on your own sanities during this process.

My little brother proposed yesterday to the girl of his dreams, with a diamond from Wink at HPD that we snatched up immediately upon spotting it. I have helped lots of folks pick out diamonds just fine, picked out my own (not without loss of sanity), but when it's got an emotional attachment, I have a very hard time really taking myself out of the equation. I didn't want to let anyone down. I wanted it to meet my ridiculously high standards. I needed them to keep reminding me "IT'S NOT FOR YOU" so that I could get back to my objectivity and going for a knockout stone without micromanaging it. However, since then, I have had a serious hankering for a just barely misshapen (or even wildly misshapen) pepperoni pizza comprised of equally misshapen pepperoni slices from Deweys.

I spent quite some time poring through the stocks of our vendors here, looking for the perfect stone for my future sister, that met all of the criteria my brother and I discussed in what he referred to as the "ame brain dump" I shared with him, with details galore about how to figure out the best stones, ASETS, IDEALSCOPES, etc. I am guessing that was overwhelming... ;) I took him to Summa to look at stones there, as well as settings. He thought on a lot of things after that visit, and took a beach vacation as well, and we ended up changing the original specs after he and the intended had more discussions. (They were pretty open about all of this despite her lack of inclusion in the selection process.)

From then on we were looking for a clean, bright 1.5ish carat stone, to provide good coverage on a 7 1/4 ring size, and his original color and clarity requirements changed, which opened the door to a bigger selection. We found ourselves staring at an AMAZING GIA XXX through HPD, weighing in at 1.51ct, graded J VS1 (I was pretty surprised this was graded a J, frankly because it's not warm at all, not really even from the side). It's a STUNNER. The colors this thing throws are astounding. It's big and bright and amazing. I was ticked when it originally showed up and we had no sun in STL. In fact it was pouring rain. But later that day, we got some great sun and that allowed me to snap a few photos for him of this fireball.

Getting it to and from Boise for my viewing and approval, and then setting, was NOT without drama and a few near-strokes. Thank you to Mother Nature and FedEx for providing the opportunity to experience so many emotions all in one 24 hour window. After discussions about settings, we decided to not set the stone in a setting similar to her inspiration photo, and let her be involved in the setting process when they start looking at rings. So I selected a simple Stuller platinum solitaire for the stone. I have a few tweaks I would like to make to the current setting in terms of prong size, but otherwise, it's secure and shows the stone beautifully.

I am going to post a few more photos over in SMTR but here's a few for this little review. I had it shipped to my office, which has horrible pale yellow-olive walls. They were behind me in many of the photos I took.






If ANYONE is on the fence about going through HPD (or Summa even), DON'T BE. The service is top notch, and the stones, are obviously incredible. THANK YOU AGAIN. (enjoys chocolate bar... no I didn't steal them this time!)

6377-aset.jpg

6377-mag.jpg

2014-02-20_09.jpg

2014-02-28_09.jpg
 
What a beautiful diamond! I think Wink is an awesome vendor. He really loves what he does. You can tell by how much effort he puts into every part of the process.

Well done on helping your brother find the perfect ring and congratulations to him and his new fiancée :appl:
 
Maisie|1393787010|3625877 said:
What a beautiful diamond! I think Wink is an awesome vendor. He really loves what he does. You can tell by how much effort he puts into every part of the process.

Well done on helping your brother find the perfect ring and congratulations to him and his new fiancée :appl:
True that.
 
Your brother was very fortunate to have your help, Ame! You did a great job! :love: :appl:
 
diamondseeker2006|1393788690|3625895 said:
Your brother was very fortunate to have your help, Ame! You did a great job! :love: :appl:
Thanks! I had a great team to help keep me focused and keep me from overthinking everything I was looking at closely with my atomic monocle ;) I think my brother is very pleased with the selection, and I am pretty darn sure his lady is also :)
 
He was indeed lucky to have you as his aide. The stone is stunning!! Wink is a good man!
 
MissGotRocks|1393802120|3626040 said:
He was indeed lucky to have you as his aide. The stone is stunning!! Wink is a good man!
Sure is!
 
How exciting! It's a lovely ring. :-)
 
ame|1393789521|3625907 said:
diamondseeker2006|1393788690|3625895 said:
Your brother was very fortunate to have your help, Ame! You did a great job! :love: :appl:
Thanks! I had a great team to help keep me focused and keep me from overthinking everything I was looking at closely with my atomic monocle ;) I think my brother is very pleased with the selection, and I am pretty darn sure his lady is also :)

Your lucky he is still talking to you as it still seems its your stone (not being mean just honest) and the stone is gorgous and I am sure your future sister is going to be thrilled that you were involved to get her such a beautiful sparkler...
 
It's a GORGEOUS stone. WOW. :appl: :appl: :appl: :appl: :appl:
 
Fireball for sure!
 
heididdl|1393814593|3626158 said:
ame|1393789521|3625907 said:
diamondseeker2006|1393788690|3625895 said:
Your brother was very fortunate to have your help, Ame! You did a great job! :love: :appl:
Thanks! I had a great team to help keep me focused and keep me from overthinking everything I was looking at closely with my atomic monocle ;) I think my brother is very pleased with the selection, and I am pretty darn sure his lady is also :)

Your lucky he is still talking to you as it still seems its your stone (not being mean just honest) and the stone is gorgous and I am sure your future sister is going to be thrilled that you were involved to get her such a beautiful sparkler...
She loves it, thanks.

Gypsy|1393833832|3626298 said:
It's a GORGEOUS stone. WOW. :appl: :appl: :appl: :appl: :appl:
Thank you! She loves it, which makes me very happy! Seeing his face after he saw it the first time made me very happy too.

lknvrb4|1393843030|3626325 said:
Fireball for sure!
Sure is! Today's the first sunny day since he proposed so hopefully she gets some good sparkledrops!
 
Ame,

Thank you for your kind comments and also thank you to the many ladies who also had some nice things to say.

It was a pleasure working with Ame to help her brother get a nice diamond. There were major delays both getting the diamond to her and then her getting it back to me with the "wonderful" weather we were having, and I am sure that Ame aged a year or two during this whole process. Now that it is over we can say that No FedEx pilots were injured during the making of this adventure...

Wink
 
Ame, when I first started viewing pricescope Mr. Wink had uploaded a video of a yellow solitaire OEC 2carat diamond with a setting he created that has and probably always will be the ring I wish I had.. I wish I had the money to locate and buy a 2 carat OEC stone.. the engraving work done was the most beautiful engraving I have ever seen, he's an artist.

But more importantly, the stone and setting you helped your brother with is perfect, quality, beauty and fine workmanship.. much much happiness to them Ame truly.. and if you could get a few handshots I would not mind..

great,lovely happy life to them.
 
It is gorgeous! They are lucky to have you "source" an amazing stone!!!



wow, can't believe the negativity of a comment. I would be thrilled to have a relative help me with a stone! Kudos to you! :appl:
 
Thanks everyone, on their behalf and my own.

Wink, you sir are a class act, and again I appreciate every bit of this adventure! Even the years I lost off my life waiting on FedEx to update! Lol The diamond is amazing and they are thrilled to be engaged!

If I get some more hand shots I'll be sure to share them!
 
!!! WOW !!!

I just love the shot of that diamond tucked away in somebody's hand, that diamond definitely has one heck of a sparkling personality! Thanks for letting me be a part of the diamond selection process Amy, it is always a pleasure chatting with you... What are you going to do with all the free time that you have now that this project for your brother has wrapped up? Time to plan their wedding? :lol:
 
Todd Gray|1394056922|3628198 said:
!!! WOW !!!

I just love the shot of that diamond tucked away in somebody's hand, that diamond definitely has one heck of a sparkling personality! Thanks for letting me be a part of the diamond selection process Amy, it is always a pleasure chatting with you... What are you going to do with all the free time that you have now that this project for your brother has wrapped up? Time to plan their wedding? :lol:
lol! It sounds like they have that under control. :)

It was a pleasure to chat with you as well! I did get some pretty great shots of that thing in spite of my HORRIBLE lighting at work!
 
GET 3 FREE HCA RESULTS JOIN THE FORUM. ASK FOR HELP
Top