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Lightbox 2ctw in 14k preorder

My Lightbox are little sparkle bombs.
 
Sale: I bought a Lightbox .75 princess in a pendant for a coworker whose e-ring went thru the vacuum cleaner to the landfill. She has a size 4 hand and on sale, $350 for 3/4 of a carat was sweet. When I unboxed it in my yellow room, I thought, oh crap, it has tint. In sunlight it was white, in the sunset it was pink. One might find this charming, except it was a more "modern" princess with chunky facets and not the traditional splintery organization of my dirty old princess earrings. It was sparkly, it l didn't window and it was very clean under the microscope, but I couldn't get around the look. It seemed disorganized. My coworker took it and paid me, but I have reservations, as if I twisted her arm. I'm going to offer to buy it back from her, she's priceless and it's $350.
Don't buy one on sale. I suspect they're all returns.
 
I have bought many Lightbox studs for myself and for my mom I have seen 0.5 ct and 1ct RB as well as 0.75ct princess and they all very bright and sparkly. I cannot differentiate their G color to my mined F e-ring. No undertones I can see but this has been my only experience. Others might be different.
 
Buttercookies said:
I have bought many Lightbox studs for myself and for my mom I have seen 0.5 ct and 1ct RB as well as 0.75ct princess and they all very bright and sparkly. I cannot differentiate their G color to my mined F e-ring. No undertones I can see but this has been my only experience. Others might be different.
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Hey Buttercookies, I was hoping you’d chime in on this thread! Have you louped your stones? Any visual impact from stria? Your earrings were all so lovely, I was thinking that is LB has stria problems you’d know about it.
 
123ducklings said:
Hey Buttercookies, I was hoping you’d chime in on this thread! Have you louped your stones? Any visual impact from stria? Your earrings were all so lovely, I was thinking that is LB has stria problems you’d know about it.
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When the PS CEO Andrey and I attended the LightBox presentation june 2019 in Vegas they mentioned Minimum Viable Product. When we quizzed them after the presentation - on what that meant the two executives looked at each other and the CEO spoke.
As I recollect:
I would say it is +G +VS, which is why for the purpose we do not see the need to add further grading costs. We are continually improving our processes and like any other manufactured product, if a piece is not up to standard, it will not pass QC.
No quotation marks - but that was the gist of it.
Now LightBox is not going to allow interruptions to power supplies and they have been leaders in developing and patenting synthetic diamond manufacture for 70 years.
 
Garry H (Cut Nut) said:
Now LightBox is not going to allow interruptions to power supplies and they have been leaders in developing and patenting synthetic diamond manufacture for 70 years.
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Wait, I’m confused. Why did you ask this question if you already knew the answer?

Garry H (Cut Nut) said:
I wonder if the larger LightBox diamonds suffer from Internal Graining (striations) the way many other CVD diamonds seem to?
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The one I ordered from the 2020 end of summer sale looked like J of very amorphous cut. It made me not want a lab-grown diamond.
I don't mean to be disrespectful but their stated QC means nothing after seeing that diamond. I believe they intend to sell everything that drops off the assembly line. My fault for shopping their sale.
 
Ibrakeforpossums said:
The one I ordered from the 2020 end of summer sale looked like J of very amorphous cut. It made me not want a lab-grown diamond.
I don't mean to be disrespectful but their stated QC means nothing after seeing that diamond. I believe they intend to sell everything that drops off the assembly line. My fault for shopping their sale.
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Tell us more. What shape cut etc please. All your estimates of 4Cs
 
123ducklings said:
Hey Buttercookies, I was hoping you’d chime in on this thread! Have you louped your stones? Any visual impact from stria? Your earrings were all so lovely, I was thinking that is LB has stria problems you’d know about it.
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I louped both of my LB one carat rounds today after seeing this thread. I looked from the top and from the bottom of the diamond looking up and from side to side. What I thought was stria disappeared after cleaning. Aside from the logo, I do not see any graining or stria. Every single facet is clean and crisp. Both were at least G in color. One was cut better than the other, I say GIA excellent in one and very good in the other. Both are very clean, I had a hard time finding any inclusion other than the logo.
 
Buttercookies said:
I louped both of my LB one carat rounds today after seeing this thread. I looked from the top and from the bottom of the diamond looking up and from side to side. What I thought was stria disappeared after cleaning. Aside from the logo, I do not see any graining or stria. Every single facet is clean and crisp. Both were at least G in color. One was cut better than the other, I say GIA excellent in one and very good in the other. Both are very clean, I had a hard time finding any inclusion other than the logo.
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Thank you!
 
Perhaps Lightbox cut the rough in a way to exclude these imperfection? Since it’s cheap to grow them, I don’t see why they shouldn’t.
 
Garry H (Cut Nut) said:
Tell us more. What shape cut etc please. All your estimates of 4Cs
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Garry, I'm not an expert like may people on this forum, I'm sorry. 3/4 carat princess in a pendant..
The first thing I noticed was how it picked up the yellow in my living room. Okay, it looked pink in the sunset, but seldom white. Mainly ambient color. And it looked nothing like my old and dirty princess studs with their straight and structured facet lines. It resembled more the WF branded princesses with larger facets but without the amazing light return. It looked disorganized, the best way I can describe it, almost like some kind of hybrid brilliant or radiant cut. It wasn't awful but far from what I thought I was buying.
The coworker I bought it for likes it, it's a square diamond. I guess we're all different.
Ada Diamonds CEO said:
The ones I purchased are extremely poorly cut. I can post ASETs if appropriate.
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Ada Diamonds CEO said:
The ones I purchased are extremely poorly cut. I can post ASETs if appropriate.
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I'd be very interested to see those ASETS,
 
From what I can gather from reading around there appears to be one or two contributors who have reset their Lightbox 2ctw studs. Is there a particular reason for that - are the settings poor quality? I noticed they have a pointed back - I’m thinking that might be very uncomfortable poking into the earlobe, and with no apparent surface area to stabilise the earring it will probably flop forward?

Any advice on wearability would be appreciated as I may consider some of these in the coming months.
 
I think the 2CTW studs were in short supply. some of them got the pendants that were then made into studs.
I am sure once the lightbox studs ship ( haven’t shipped yet ) we will be getting more updates than we want ( haha myself included as I have ordered one )
 
@Lindsay19 I don't have any lightbox yet. Probably gunna be a few years before I can but I can tell you that unless they offer them in platinum I will be resetting mine for that reason alone. Gold and silver seem to get my ears infected.
 
Lindsay19 said:
From what I can gather from reading around there appears to be one or two contributors who have reset their Lightbox 2ctw studs. Is there a particular reason for that - are the settings poor quality? I noticed they have a pointed back - I’m thinking that might be very uncomfortable poking into the earlobe, and with no apparent surface area to stabilise the earring it will probably flop forward?

Any advice on wearability would be appreciated as I may consider some of these in the coming months.
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Agree with @Dhana — most of the reset projects have been because people couldn’t get the earrings and bought two pendants instead to make their own pair.

If like @MeowMeow you know you’re going to reset them, you can save a bit of money by watching the Bloomie’s (or Reed’s) inventory/sales and grabbing two of the 1ct pendants there.
 
123ducklings said:
Agree with @Dhana — most of the reset projects have been because people couldn’t get the earrings and bought two pendants instead to make their own pair.

If like @MeowMeow you know you’re going to reset them, you can save a bit of money by watching the Bloomie’s (or Reed’s) inventory/sales and grabbing two of the 1ct pendants there.
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Yeah that's definitely a possibility! We will see once it's time for me to start that project who is offering what. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll be offering platinum by then! Who knows!
 
MeowMeow said:
Yeah that's definitely a possibility! We will see once it's time for me to start that project who is offering what. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll be offering platinum by then! Who knows!
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When I priced out the most recent sale at Bloomingdales it was about $600 cheaper to buy two one carat necklaces vs the 14kt 2ctw studs from Lightbox. Of course you have to buy the mountings and have them set but depending on what you want could be a cost savings!
 
I wish Bloomingdale's (or Reed) sold Lightbox to UK customers, but it's not on their UK inventory unfortunately. It sounds like the savings would be very worthwhile. I'll have to hope that Lightbox's website occasionally has sales or special offers.
 
I think the point De Beers are making with Light box is the stuff is for fun and not serious high end Exceptional jewels.
 
Garry H (Cut Nut) said:
I think the point De Beers are making with Light box is the stuff is for fun and not serious high end Exceptional jewels.
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I guess the seriousness is in the eye of the beholder, despite what De Beers is marketing. I think these would be fantastic in studs— which can be easier to lose. I’m very curious to see more reviews of these from PS members as I only have heard good reports so far.
 
Garry H (Cut Nut) said:
I think the point De Beers are making with Light box is the stuff is for fun and not serious high end Exceptional jewels.
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That is what they are yowling in the night.
They are setting themselves up for a dumping charge and antitrust issues.
They are intentionally trying to damage a market for their own good in another market. tsk tsk
 
Ibrakeforpossums said:
Sale: I bought a Lightbox .75 princess in a pendant for a coworker whose e-ring went thru the vacuum cleaner to the landfill. She has a size 4 hand and on sale, $350 for 3/4 of a carat was sweet. When I unboxed it in my yellow room, I thought, oh crap, it has tint. In sunlight it was white, in the sunset it was pink. One might find this charming, except it was a more "modern" princess with chunky facets and not the traditional splintery organization of my dirty old princess earrings. It was sparkly, it l didn't window and it was very clean under the microscope, but I couldn't get around the look. It seemed disorganized. My coworker took it and paid me, but I have reservations, as if I twisted her arm. I'm going to offer to buy it back from her, she's priceless and it's $350.
Don't buy one on sale. I suspect they're all returns.
Click to expand...

You’re so nice to your coworker :) - what a gem you are!

Can you tell more about chunky princess facets? I returned a 1ct lightbox princess cut because I didn’t like how the princess looked like it had four quadrants - but I thought maybe all princess cuts were like that?
 
I didn't like the look, maybe four quadrants is another way of describing it. To me, a princess has a distinct center with facets radiating out at 90 degrees, 45 degrees, etc. It's a very organized and immediately recognizable cut. It has four corners but one cohesive pattern. I'm not an expert but I just louped my little Helzberg pawnshop princess to try to describe how I think they should look. The LB pendant didn't resemble any Princess I've ever seen, it picked up ambient color like crazy and it soured me on the brand. Read what Karl K. has to say about them.
I've seen killer princesses on PriceScope. One person got a I1 D from JA that had the trade commenting on its beauty. Look around, it'll train your eye and give you confidence in what you find appealing.
 
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