Leo diamonds

[MichelleCarmen]

Hi everyone,

I don't have anything terribly important to say

but just that I went and looked at "Leo" diamond earrings and was surprised that they actually are fairly pretty. Definetely not H&A cut, but the DO sparkle much better than any of the other diamond earrings I could find in the infamous mall! What got me though was the price. OUTRAGEOUS! If the mall was my only option, I'd never own another diamond in my life!!!!

The earrings were .97 CTW, round studs in yellow gold, G SI1 + SI2 and they wanted $3999, plus WA state tax of 8.6% (or so). Online, I found better (H&A ACA G color, both SI1) for $2000 cheaper and NO TAX. . .


Ahhhh, okay, of course you all know all this, but i have to tell someone and my husband would start questioning me on why I was even looking in the first place

Michelle

 

[winyan]

Hiya MC!

Leo diamonds are the ones with 100 facets, no?

Pretty, but I'm not sure all that light doesn't make for looking like a fractured ice cube rather than a diamond.

I personally prefer old cuts, or H/A.

win

 

[Mara]

From what I have heard, Leos don't look like a RB eh? Kind of like a funny sparkly faceted thing?




Whenever I hear about those 100 facet or 1000 facet cuts or whatever the latest is...I always wonder why the cutter just couldn't cut an excellent 58 faceted regular RB stone instead? Seems like such a waste to add so many extra facets that are not really quantifiable in terms of adding beauty onto a perfectly good stone.

 

[chris-uk04]

Leo Diamonds have 66 facets. They look a lot like a RB. They sell them here in the UK through a jeweler Ernest Jones. They are rather pretty, but overpriced.

A 1 carat in a white gold setting sells for £6000 (about $10,000). It’s a fixed price. All you are guaranteed is SI2 and I color. So if you got a G VS1, you would pay the same as if you got a I SI2. That’s not great for the diamond savvy consumer. A 1ct, H&A I SI2 would probably selling for <$5000 online. The thing about it is, that they compare them to the other mall stones. So, by comparison they look amazing, but I’m sure look no better than a H&A.

 

[valeria101]

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On 1/16/2004 3:18:59 AM Mara wrote:



I always wonder why the cutter just couldn't cut an excellent 58 faceted regular RB stone instead? Seems like such a waste to add so many extra facets that are not really quantifiable in terms of adding beauty onto a perfectly good stone. ----------------

Quantifiable beauty ?

We'd wish

...

I guess this is simmilar to the Q of "why would one want a square diamond when the rounds are so nice". Some people like their stone different than anyone elses' and some would want them as classic as they get. fashion, hype, trends, fads, you name them! And, well, I guess it is easier to charge for "difference" rather the better quality for which some means/ standards of comparison are needed. After a longer while chasing opals, I can surely say that both pinfire and broad flashes are nice

as long as light is there. In whatever manifestation (50, 100 or 130 facets) shape, craftmanship is a great way to add value to crystalized carbon. To each his own, I guess. I was quite delighted with the "fire rose" (is this the same as Leo?) cut - a rose cut crown and RBC pavilion since I really like rose cuts. I wish these branded cuts came with some quality parameters attached, but they seem to get somewhat better cutting to begin with just because there are not so many made and for the name's sake, I gues...

 

[pqcollectibles]

I've seen them, live and in person. I thought they looked like golf balls that had been out on the course a tad too long, or landed in the lake after a really bad whack!

 

[valeria101]

Obvious!

. And the left model doesn't even have dimples!!!

 

[Hest88]

I don't think most consumers buy according to quantifiable beauty anyway. A Leo diamond may leak light like mad, but the extra sparkles are going to create great scintillation---fooling most consumers into thinking it's "sparklier."

 

[pqcollectibles]

They are sparkly! That's for sure.

When I was shopping for a pendant last spring, I looked at some Leo diamonds. Most were mounted in rings, but they had one 3/4 carat in a pendant that I looked at up close. The 3/4 carat was much more rounded looking than the pic that Val posted. The cutlet was not pointed at all. Since they don't have a traditional table, the crown looked more dimpled than faceted.

Just reporting what I saw. Other Leo diamonds may look different. Or Leo diamonds may look different to other people.

 

[MichelleCarmen]

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On 1/15/2004 9:18:48 PM winyan wrote:

Hiya MC!

Leo diamonds are the ones with 100 facets, no?

Pretty, but I'm not sure all that light doesn't make for looking like a fractured ice cube rather than a diamond.

I personally prefer old cuts, or H/A.

win----------------

hahaha - yeah, maybe these did look a bit like fractured ice cubes!!!

I didn't look closely at them since I have absolutely no intensions in buying them, so I just looked for liveliness as most preset mall earrings I've seen are kind of dull. . .the girls in there were sharks, though! They actually tried to get me buy the earrings on credit and take them home and THEN discuss the idea with my husband

Oh, yeah, and they did have an awful lot of facets. . .lol.

Michelle

 

[MichelleCarmen]

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On 1/16/2004 3:18:59 AM Mara wrote:


From what I have heard, Leos don't look like a RB eh? Kind of like a funny sparkly faceted thing?


Whenever I hear about those 100 facet or 1000 facet cuts or whatever the latest is...I always wonder why the cutter just couldn't cut an excellent 58 faceted regular RB stone instead? Seems like such a waste to add so many extra facets that are not really quantifiable in terms of adding beauty onto a perfectly good stone.

----------------

Ah, they were more like a RB than the Fred Meyer stone. That one is an atrocity, not to mention three times the price of H&A stones (or at least the one I looked at was

)!

Michelle

 

[MichelleCarmen]

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On 1/16/2004 11:14:26 AM Hest88 wrote:

I don't think most consumers buy according to quantifiable beauty anyway. A Leo diamond may leak light like mad, but the extra sparkles are going to create great scintillation---fooling most consumers into thinking it's 'sparklier.'----------------

The leo has chunkier flashes of color that appear bigger so when you get a flash of blue or red it appears more alive than the other mall stones even if the amount overall isn't as great as a well cut stone. My eng. stone seemed more delicate in its return as compared to the Leo. . .my stone was smudged with lotion, though, so I didn't do too much comparing of the two.


Michelle

 

[mike04456]

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On 1/16/2004 11:14:26 AM Hest88 wrote:





I don't think most consumers buy according to quantifiable beauty anyway. A Leo diamond may leak light like mad, but the extra sparkles are going to create great scintillation---fooling most consumers into thinking it's 'sparklier.'
----------------

Over Xmas, I did a little "mystery shopping" at the mall while waiting for the baby to arrive. One place I went was Helzberg Diamonds, where they proceeded to show me their "Radiant Star" cut. The salesgirl breathlessly explained to me how this cut has 145 facets, which is far more than everyone else's, which meant theirs were the most brilliant diamonds available (I held my tongue about the 221-facet Brilliant Lady, since I was pretending to be a dumb consumer

).

They did look nice, though some further questioning revealed that the Radiant Stars are pretty much all I1 clarity--so the extra facets hide the inclusions. Clever.

 

[Mara]

Hest....yeah but quantifiable beauty to someone may be that it looks 'sparklier' so it's more beautiful. It's an objective thing (QB).

I guess actually when a store like a Helzberg or Zales has their own extra-faceted stone, when placed next to the crap they NORMALLY sell as great (e.g. J/I1 with eye-visible inclusions and a horrible cut), the name-branded faceted stone will shine like the dickens. So when faced with those two options, I think most people would choose the better looking stone, nevermind that it's more $$$.




In my bridal mags..I see about 5 ads per mag about all the extra faceted cut stones. All shapes and sizes. But mostly rounds cut with extra facets. There's 66. There's 78. There's 99. 105. The ads are quite interesting, as are the names. But for whatever reason, the good ole 58 facet stone works for me.

 

[MichelleCarmen]

----------------
I guess actually when a store like a Helzberg or Zales has their own extra-faceted stone, when placed next to the crap they NORMALLY sell as great (e.g. J/I1 with eye-visible inclusions and a horrible cut), the name-branded faceted stone will shine like the dickens. So when faced with those two options, I think most people would choose the better looking stone, nevermind that it's more $$$.


----------------

This just perplexes me. . .Obviously, I don't know a whole lot about diamonds, but I do know that Helzberg's sells true H&A diamonds, as marketed under the name, "masterpiece collection," or something along this line. . .It's too bad that their company is so competitive with these other chain stores that they'd instead push a stone with 145 facets rather than inform customers of their much better cut collection.

FWIW, every time I've been in Helzberg's, unless I specifically ask about their h&a diamonds, they simple don't include these stones in their sales pitch. .. but, on the otherhand, their h&a stones are not exactly cheap. The .5 H color I looked at was, hmmm . . .$5,000 (!?!) That seems like too much, maybe I'm wrong?

Michelle

 

[mike04456]

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On 1/16/2004 3:40:55 PM MichelleCarmen wrote:







This just perplexes me. . .Obviously, I don't know a whole lot about diamonds, but I do know that Helzberg's sells true H&A diamonds, as marketed under the name, 'masterpiece collection,' or something along this line. . .It's too bad that their company is so competitive with these other chain stores that they'd instead push a stone with 145 facets rather than inform customers of their much better cut collection.

----------------

Well, she did pull out an H&A cut stone, but only after I repeatedly asked to see something better than the I-clarity stones they had on display (one of the first ones she showed me had a huge, obvious crystal in one corner of the table). When she showed me the H&A, she said that it was a "perfectly cut" diamond. When I asked what that meant, she had a difficult time explaining it, but eventually rambled through an explanation of symmetry, and how this made it more brilliant. I wasn't sure she quite understood it herself.