I saw HOF stones

[aneelcon]

So I decide to take the day off today and do some shopping at the new mall that just opened up near my house. As I''m about to go home, I pass this jewelry store and take a peek in their windows. Low and behold, a DREAM diamond. I quickly go in and try to see if they can show me some HOF stones. No loose stones but they had plenty that were already mounted. The lady showed me 1ctw diamond studs for $5k!!!! My budget is half that for about 1.2 - 1.3ctw for H&A studs.

Anyways, I didn''t really notice anything special about the HOF stones. They were pretty but I think any diamond under their lighting would be pretty.

just my thoughts.

 

[niceice]

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Anyways, I didn't really notice anything special about the HOF stones. They were pretty but I think any diamond under their lighting would be pretty.

just my thoughts.

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Either did we, which is why we stopped selling them about three months after we began working with the company in the mid-1990's. In our opinion, HOF doesn't offer anything that isn't available from any other brand or non-brand of ideal cut diamond that exhibits a Hearts & Arrows pattern and you shouldn't pay a premium just for a name...

With regards to jewelry store lighting, it is designed to make frozen spit look sparkly! 300 Watt Halogen bulbs with Dio-chromatic blue filters will do that... The real test for a diamond is how it performs when it is starved for light, when it is starved for light and still manages to pick up what little light it is exposed to, that's a winner!

 

[Summer]

When I first saw a HOF I was a bit disappointed too. I actually wouldn't pay a premium for any branded stone when I could get the same ideal cut in an unbranded stone without the premium.

 

[niceice]

Beyond the over pricing of the product for the sake of the brand name, the part that really bothered us was what we perceive as an inconsitency in the quality of the diamonds that are represented under the brand name... We saw too much inconsistency in terms of the combination of proportions, the crispness of the patterns and the polish and symmetry grades, we were looking for a more precise product than the company was offering at the time... And those stupid marketing videos... They made us embarrased to be dealers! We found ourselves watching them and being embarrassed for our customers, it's like they are produced for people without an ounce of intelligence in their heads, it's all this romantic fru-fru slush without any real depth in terms of the precision of the diamonds themselves - wait, we're getting it now... Could it be that there wasn't any "real" discussion as to the precision of the diamonds because there wasn't any? Doh!

 

[highendgems]

totally agree-nothing special about H&A or HOF. just need to get an ideal cut stone unless you want to throw some money away.

 

[niceice]

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On 1/20/2004 11:30:04 AM highendgems wrote:

totally agree-nothing special about H&A or HOF. just need to get an ideal cut stone unless you want to throw some money away.----------------

On that note however, many ideal cut diamonds exhibit decent patterns of Hearts & Arrows simply because the pattern is the reflection of the standard faceting pattern found on a round brilliant cut diamond... And there really isn't a premium charged for the pattern, so if you want the pattern, look for a stone that has it, but we don't consider it to be that important ourselves. In fact, a good deal of our research indicates that an ideal cut diamond often has a broader pattern of light return when the H&A pattern is not that crisp and complete... Is this because the pattern of light return is not restricted to such a precise path of light return? This we don't know, it's just something that we're watching... We will say that the H&A diamonds that were available to us as dealers in the mid-1990's were a significantly more precise animal than we see in the market today from any dealer, any brand, and yes, we've seen those offered by the competition... The fact of the matter is that the H&A stones of yesteryear were a wonder to gaze upon, but then again they took four days to produce - the cutters simply can't afford the production time anymore because the majority of the public isn't willing to pay 8* prices on a day to day basis... Some will, most won't.