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Is this a poor ASET, I'm confused

swtmelissa

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Someone recently told me that they wouldn't buy this diamond as "the girdles are pretty dug out for my liking. You can see these issues in the ASET imagery."

What are your thoughts? What he said doesn't make any sense to me. But perhaps I'm missing something.....

image_304.jpg

image_302.jpg


image_314.jpg
 

tyty333

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What is the carat weight of that stone?
 

ChristineRose

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They mean that the green triangles around the perimeter are bigger than they need to be.

Digging is a bit tricky to explain even with pictures but basically it means that the little sort of triangular facets around the edge of the crown are more vertical than they need to be. This is usually done because the diameter of the diamond has been bumped up a little so that the finished circle of the diamond pokes out past the edge of the rough and hence is a little out of round, being dented or flat on one side. They place the triangle facets right over the dent and rotate them up so that the dent is sawed off into the little triangle.

You can also dig out the lower facets in the same way.

The net result is to shift some of the light return away from the top of the diamond and off to the sides.

http://www.diamondcut.gia.edu/pdf/6_05_RDR_pg239_243pdf.pdf
 

swtmelissa

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ChristineRose|1452709867|3975501 said:
They mean that the green triangles around the perimeter are bigger than they need to be.

Digging is a bit tricky to explain even with pictures but basically it means that the little sort of triangular facets around the edge of the crown are more vertical than they need to be. This is usually done because the diameter of the diamond has been bumped up a little so that the finished circle of the diamond pokes out past the edge of the rough and hence is a little out of round, being dented or flat on one side. They place the triangle facets right over the dent and rotate them up so that the dent is sawed off into the little triangle.

You can also dig out the lower facets in the same way.

The net result is to shift some of the light return away from the top of the diamond and off to the sides.

http://www.diamondcut.gia.edu/pdf/6_05_RDR_pg239_243pdf.pdf

1.08
here's the link (I've posted it in an earlier post this week)
http://www.goodoldgold.com/ecommerce/1.08ct-h-si2-platinum-select-round-ideal-cut-diamond.html
 

swtmelissa

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ChristineRose|1452709867|3975501 said:
They mean that the green triangles around the perimeter are bigger than they need to be.

Digging is a bit tricky to explain even with pictures but basically it means that the little sort of triangular facets around the edge of the crown are more vertical than they need to be. This is usually done because the diameter of the diamond has been bumped up a little so that the finished circle of the diamond pokes out past the edge of the rough and hence is a little out of round, being dented or flat on one side. They place the triangle facets right over the dent and rotate them up so that the dent is sawed off into the little triangle.

You can also dig out the lower facets in the same way.

The net result is to shift some of the light return away from the top of the diamond and off to the sides.

http://www.diamondcut.gia.edu/pdf/6_05_RDR_pg239_243pdf.pdf

So was this person correct, is it not worth buying this diamond?
 

ChristineRose

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It will look somewhat dark around the edges and thus appear smaller. You are paying for extra weight that isn't really getting you what you want. Of course that depends on the price of the diamond and how badly you want to tell people you have a one carat diamond.

If you drop down to .9 carats you can probably find a better cut stone that doesn't meet the magic one carat mark but looks just as large and has more attractive scintillation (patterns of flashing as the diamond moves). The difference in diameter is tiny and not something you'll notice unless you hold it next to a one carat diamond. And it will be quite a bit cheaper because it doesn't hit one carat.
 

tyty333

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Can you have Gog do a video for you so you can look at the outer edge of the stone under different lighting conditions? You can also ask Gog about the digging and what their opinion is.
 

swtmelissa

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Do you guys think it would be worth it to drop down to an I color (and stay around 1 c) and get a hearts and arrows from GOG? Or keep the H color and drop in size below 1 carat to get a GOG hearts and arrows?
 

diamondseeker2006

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You need to simply ASK GOG about the edge brightness of the stone compared to an Ascendancy. It is quite likely you couldn't tell the difference. Aren't you planning to go back there? See if you can tell them apart. You probably can't. I don't think GOG would buy a diamond for their platinum select inventory if it was not a great stone. They chose it, they wouldn't buy a bad stone.

So really we can't tell you what to do. I prefer H color over I color. I also like higher clarity. If I were to go smaller, it would be to get better clarity and not a thing to do with the ASET image of that stone. That is not a poor ASET image. If the clarity is totally eyeclean and you are okay with that, then I wouldn't switch stones unless they can show you a visible difference in edge brightness.
 

ChristineRose

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There are advantages and disadvantages of both. In general cut matters more than color, but as this is still in the GIA Excellent category it is not going to be a truly badly cut.

Ideally you should look at some I stones as you will likely be able to see tint under some real world conditions, and you should also look at some H & A versus just excellent cut stones. Of course every stone is unique and what you can see locally will not be a perfect match. Asking GOG for a video of this stone next to an I might be helpful but of course videos aren't perfect either. Definitely ask GOG what they think.
 

swtmelissa

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diamondseeker2006|1452713030|3975530 said:
You need to simply ASK GOG about the edge brightness of the stone compared to an Ascendancy. It is quite likely you couldn't tell the difference. Aren't you planning to go back there? See if you can tell them apart. You probably can't. I don't think GOG would buy a diamond for their platinum select inventory if it was not a great stone. They chose it, they wouldn't buy a bad stone.

So really we can't tell you what to do. I prefer H color over I color. I also like higher clarity. If I were to go smaller, it would be to get better clarity and not a thing to do with the ASET image of that stone. That is not a poor ASET image. If the clarity is totally eyeclean and you are okay with that, then I wouldn't switch stones unless they can show you a visible difference in edge brightness.

Thanks diamond seeker, I will ask :)
 

swtmelissa

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ChristineRose|1452713328|3975532 said:
There are advantages and disadvantages of both. In general cut matters more than color, but as this is still in the GIA Excellent category it is not going to be a truly badly cut.

Ideally you should look at some I stones as you will likely be able to see tint under some real world conditions, and you should also look at some H & A versus just excellent cut stones. Of course every stone is unique and what you can see locally will not be a perfect match. Asking GOG for a video of this stone next to an I might be helpful but of course videos aren't perfect either. Definitely ask GOG what they think.

Thank you!
 

solgen

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swtmelissa|1452711753|3975523 said:
Do you guys think it would be worth it to drop down to an I color (and stay around 1 c) and get a hearts and arrows from GOG? Or keep the H color and drop in size below 1 carat to get a GOG hearts and arrows?


That's a the decision you have to make for yourself. There's going to be some sort of trade off so you have to find what is tolerable to you.

The ASET isn't terrible but I can see why some might not like the particular look of that diamond.

GOG has a vid that shows a painted compared to a conventional H&A. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kmj-TkqTuI
 

swtmelissa

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solgen|1452714468|3975545 said:
swtmelissa|1452711753|3975523 said:
Do you guys think it would be worth it to drop down to an I color (and stay around 1 c) and get a hearts and arrows from GOG? Or keep the H color and drop in size below 1 carat to get a GOG hearts and arrows?


That's a the decision you have to make for yourself. There's going to be some sort of trade off so you have to find what is tolerable to you.

The ASET isn't terrible but I can see why some might not like the particular look of that diamond.

GOG has a vid that shows a painted compared to a conventional H&A. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kmj-TkqTuI

Thanks, I took a look at that video as well as this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvqbheRsRMk
and both helped me a lot!
 

beaujolais

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ChristineRose:

That was one of the very, very few explanations of digging I've ever read that I could kinda grasp! :appl:

I don't mean to threadjack but could you please tell me how you'd explain painting? I'd prefer to start another thread for it, though, as to not be impolite to the OP. I'm just dropping this request here to see if you are still out there.

OP, best of luck with your purchase!
 

ChristineRose

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Okay, painting!

Painting is sort of the opposite of digging. The little triangular facets around the girdle are more horizontal than they need to be. The outer part is tipped up and the inner part is more or less in the same place.

Here's an image which I found on www.zoultier.com...

faceting.jpg

Picture (g) is a single cut gem (at least on top). Between (h) and (i) is when the digging and painting take place. The ultimate example of painting would just to skip step (i), which would obviously save some weight. To paint you just take a less vertical angle, with the flattest possible angle being the slope of the large trapezoids added in step (g), which is a round about way of saying the flattest possible angle is not to cut the little facets at all.

The effect of painting is make the crown closer to a mirror and further from a prism or a disco ball. Mirrors do a great job of reflecting light back where it came from, but are not so great at sparkling. It's called painting because the little facets are there, but they aren't really doing as much for the appearance. You can see the outlines of the facets, but there's no three dimensional wow to them.

The normal use of painting is to save enough weight to bump stones past that magic 1 carat mark, but it's also used to correct for shallow crowns. The outer part of the crown is thicker, more like an ideal cut crown. The net result is a brighter but less sparkly diamond that also retains some weight. This stone lost weight in the crown though, so the overall weight is low, but on the other hand the real purpose was to use some rough that happened to come out bigger on one side than on the other.

Interestingly the GIA grading system is less forgiving of painting and digging than is AGS. GIA got their limits by showing people progressions of worse and worse cut stones and putting a line where people said "I don't like that" and AGS creates a series of light-performance models and cuts off when the light performance drops below optimal. I assume AGS is capturing those stones where painting actually compensates for poor cut elsewhere and GIA is dropping those stones early in the evaluation.
 

beaujolais

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Thank you, CR, so very much! Superb explanation!

Apologies, OP, for the interruption.
 
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