I saw a stone today... it was nice... but?

[L3bed3V]

Hello everyone,

I saw a great looking stone today.
I have been doing research based on the information posted on this site, and its great, there are a lot of talented people here who really know their stuff. I have also been visiting a few galleries and safes where I have looked at a dozen at the least, diamonds.
My friend showed me a nice 1.59K, SI2 Stone, D Color, Excellent Cut from GIA and gave me a great price for it.
I can tell you if you PM me.
When I put the numbers into the HCA, with the specs of:

Depth: 62.4%
Table: 57%
Crown Angle: 36.0°
Crown Height: 15.5%
Pavilion Angle: 41.2°
Pavilion Depth: 43.5%
Star length: 50%
Lower Half: 80%
Girdle: Thin to Medium, Faceted (3.5%)
Culet: None


The results came back with Good for Light Return
Fair for Fire
Good for Scintillation
and Very Good for spread and total visual performance is 5.3.

Is it safe to say that this isnt a good stone ? Or maybe its a good stone, but it lacks that fire and sparkle ? It didnt shine as other stones that I have seen in the past. Should I be looking for a specific number, perhaps the way the crown angle is set and then the pavillion angle ?

Would this rock be a good one for an engagement ring?

I have also found some stones on BlueNile that rank very nice on the HCA, 1.0 and 2.0 and when I sent the GIA reports to my friend he said that the stones arent good, that one is cloudy and the other has carbon spots in it.
So how can these stones rank so high on the HCA? is it because their numbers fit a model, they will score higher, but in reality they can have flaws, like clouds and be much more milky and not clear ? etc with the carbon spots.


Any and all help is much appreciated!

 

[raz91]

Numbers on this stone aren''t so great (as the HCA points out). You want to use the HCA to narrow down your selection of diamonds to those with a score below 2, ideally. Once a diamond is below 2, you can use other tools (idealscope, ASET, etc.) to pick the final diamond.

Also, unless you or your SO is REALLY color sensitive, I would stay away from D color. There''s a steep premium on D. I''d look at F if you are color sensitive, G or H if you are less so.

Finally, there are no PMs on PS.

 

[L3bed3V]

Thanks raz, I really should look at some more stones, perhaps an E or an F''s
My search continues.

 

[CharmyPoo]

The cut advisor provides a score based on cut - cut determines the fire and sparkle of a diamond and translates to beauty in my opinion. When you talk about clouds and carbon spots, you are referring to clarity which isn''t factored into the cut advisor. The stone your friend is offering is a SI2 in clarity - not bad but by no means a perfectly clean stone. What clarity were the stones you were looking at on Blue Nile? They don''t carry anything below a SI2 so I find it surprising that your friend''s stone can be that much cleaner. The SI2 range can be big but I think your friend is giving you a biased opinion.

 

[beach]

Maybe share your budget and people can help you find a stone?

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 4/27/2009 10:07:42 PM
Author: raz91
Numbers on this stone aren't so great (as the HCA points out). You want to use the HCA to narrow down your selection of diamonds to those with a score below 2, ideally. Once a diamond is below 2, you can use other tools (idealscope, ASET, etc.) to pick the final diamond.

Also, unless you or your SO is REALLY color sensitive, I would stay away from D color. There's a steep premium on D. I'd look at F if you are color sensitive, G or H if you are less so.

Finally, there are no PMs on PS.

Ditto raz, this is what is called a steep deep angled diamond, the crown and pavilion angles are not a good match for each other so the diamond will leak light and not sparkle as well as it could do - I would keep looking as this will not be a good rock for an e-ring.

If you want a D then no problem but you could lower the colour a bit and still have a very white diamond, F or G for example but it is up to your personal preferences.