Find your diamond
Find your jewelry
shape
carat
color
clarity

Looking for advice

R

RingRingRing

Rough_Rock
Joined
Jul 26, 2012
Messages
6
This forum has been a very helpful resource, and I am getting close to making a decision.

My girlfriend has emphasized quality over size, and my total budget is around 6500-7000, so I have been looking for a stone in the 5000-5500 range. Above all, I'm looking for something with a bit of a "wow" factor, so I've been focusing on ACA stones at Whiteflash in the F-G, VS1-VS2 range. Does that seem like a good approach for my budget.

More specifically, I'd love to hear some views on these stones:
http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2812704.htm
http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2812716.htm
http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2812700.htm

Thanks in advance for your help!
 
Try to go for the 1 carat. H, VS2 is a really good balance, and she'll still get to brag to everyone that she's got a 1-carat.
 
You can't go wrong with an ACA.
 
I would ask
1. What setting are you looking? Solitaire or Halo? If solitaire, you can up your budget to $6500 if your budget is $7000.
2. Going for WOW is definitely what you want! Whiteflash has some great selections - you can drop your clarity to "eye clean" and gain a little size. What size is your gf's finger? That will give us an idea of how much finger coverage she needs.

Here's a slightly larger stone (just .1) .86 F SI1 at $5100 (minus the $75 first time customer discount):
http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2794550.htm

I'm not seeing anything else significantly larger in a lower clarity on WF.

So one of the main benefits of WF is their fantastic trade in policy and guaranteed beautiful cuts.

James Allen has an upgrade policy that requires you to spend double, which is a large chunk of change. However, I do like James Allen for smaller budgets as they have access to a larger stock with a few AGS000 ideal cuts available in lower clarities, yet still eye clean:
http://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/G-SI2-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1452955.asp
.5 mm larger, 1 carat, AGS000 G SI2 clarity - appears to be eyeclean, but JA can confirm.
If you like it, put it on hold because I can guarantee someone's gonna snipe that sucker.
 
Thanks for your responses. Here's some follow-up from me.

Fife: At Whiteflash, a 1 carat H VS2 that is ACA or ES runs 8,500-10,000 -- which is well above my budget for both stone and setting. Also, like I said in my original post, she is more interested in quality and appearance than size.

JulieN: Thanks for the reassurance -- much appreciated!

webdiva: In response to your questions:
(1) Solitaire setting. I was assuming it would be $1000 for the setting. I'm probably going to go with something like the Whiteflash X-prong, which is $1295 in platinum: http://www.whiteflash.com/engagement-rings/solitaire/x-prong-trellis-solitaire-engagement-ring-1197.htm
(2) My girlfriend is a 6 or 6.25 (I'm trying to confirm which). Can you elaborate on "coverage" and how to determine if there will be enough?
Thanks for the stones you suggested, but I'm very wary of going too low on clarity. I understand the concept of "eye clean," but I guess it's just a mental obstacle I can't seem to get past. :-) Am I being irrational?

diamondseeker2006: Thanks for your suggestion. That looks like a nice stone. How much recognizable is the difference in size between say, 0.82 and 0.90? It seems to be the difference between about 6.0 x 6.0 mm and 6.2 mm x 6.2 mm. I can see a clear difference between 0.82 and 1.0, but the visible difference between 0.82 and 0.90 seems like it won't be as noticeable. Or am I crazy?

Thanks so much for all your responses. This is a very stressful process, so it's very helpful to have such great advice -- especially from total strangers!
 
If we're talking about ideal cuts with "proper" dimensions, the visible difference (when unmounted) between:

.8 (6mm) and .9 (6.25mm) is somewhat minimal (8% increase in surface area)
.9 (6.25mm) and 1.0 (6.45mm) is pretty minimal (6% increase in surface area)
.8 (6mm) and 1.0 (6.45mm) is definitely noticeable (13% increase in surface area)

If you want it to look like a 1 carat stone, get a .9 (~6.25mm), not a .8 in my opinion - especially with a 6+ finger size. I went through this exact process myself and even drew tons of 6mm, 6.25mm and 6.45mm circles in Microsoft Visio in different arrangements to see where I could easily differentiate between sizes. The 6mm circle was always easy for me to pick out right away, but the 6.25mm and 6.45mm always looked very similar and took a few seconds of careful evaluation for me to tell which was which.

I ended up with what WF tells me is a gorgeous .904 carat, 6.27mm, AGS 0, H color, SI1 clarity (eye clean from 6") stone from their virtual selection. It has an HCA score of .9 and beautiful Idealscope and ASET images as well. I paid about $4800 (last month). Whiteflash is holding the stone for me until I decide on a setting sometime in the next month or so.

Take a look at the attached PDF with 3 different patterns of 6mm, 6.25mm and 6.45mm circles. The 6mm is consistently the easiest to pick out for sure (try covering 1 of the 3 circles at a time with your finger). View the patterns at different zoom levels as well until the size on your monitor resembles the actual size of the stones. Alternatively, you can print the document which might be even better.
 

Attachments

Hi jkozlow3! Thanks for your incredibly helpful response. I see what you mean about being able to easily pick out the 6 mm (0.80) circles. And while I could spot the difference between the 6.25 mm (0.90) and 6.45 mm (1.00) circles pretty easily as well, it was much more difficult when not comparing them side-by-side. In other words, if you just showed me either the 6.25 or 6.45 mm circles by themselves, I'm not confident I could recognize them.

I'm curious about virtual selection through WF. To be honest, it's not something I had considered, largely because of it doesn't give me the convenience of seeing all the images on the site. Now that I've read about it a bit, I'm also a little wary of being out $50 just to look at a diamond, if I don't end up buying it. What made you use virtual selection? Is it much cheaper? How did you go about picking out a diamond and feeling (at least reasonably) confident that it would be one you would ultimately want to purchase?

Thanks in advance for your response.
 
RingRingRing|1343400124|3241342 said:
Hi jkozlow3! Thanks for your incredibly helpful response. I see what you mean about being able to easily pick out the 6 mm (0.80) circles. And while I could spot the difference between the 6.25 mm (0.90) and 6.45 mm (1.00) circles pretty easily as well, it was much more difficult when not comparing them side-by-side. In other words, if you just showed me either the 6.25 or 6.45 mm circles by themselves, I'm not confident I could recognize them.

I'm curious about virtual selection through WF. To be honest, it's not something I had considered, largely because of it doesn't give me the convenience of seeing all the images on the site. Now that I've read about it a bit, I'm also a little wary of being out $50 just to look at a diamond, if I don't end up buying it. What made you use virtual selection? Is it much cheaper? How did you go about picking out a diamond and feeling (at least reasonably) confident that it would be one you would ultimately want to purchase?

Thanks in advance for your response.
Click to expand...


To be honest, I was only just beginning my search after spending several weeks reading about diamonds here on PriceScope as well as on sites like GoodOldGold, etc. I was only starting to casually search for diamonds and was still 4+ months from when I anticipated wanting to purchase a ring when I stumbled across the stone I ended up purchasing from their virtual selection. I almost didn't have it brought-in just because I really wasn't even in the market just yet. But the stone I came across was an AGS 000 and met all of my criteria and was several hundred dollars cheaper than anything else in their virtual selection and around $1500+ cheaper than anything comparable from their in-house (Expert) selection. So I figured, what the heck - $50 is fairly cheap if the stone turns out to be a disappointment. Besides, with an AGS 000 score and an HCA score of <2, it's pretty unlikely that the stone will turn out to be a dud. Fortunately, I got super lucky on my first try and the SI1 stone turned out to be completely eye-clean from 6" and has fantastic looking IS and ASET images as well!
 
do what it takes to hit the 1 cart mark. Size is important to most women regardless of what they say!
 
Have you spoken to anyone at Whiteflash? They may be able to make suggestions based on our budget. Has your gf 100% asked for a solitaire? If you're not 100% sure on setting, it may make sense to save money and go with one of the simpler solitaire's. Jkozlow3 provided you with some good information - and proves why dropping down in clarity makes sense if you're to maximize spread.

Take a look at some of the lower clarity diamonds on screen- if it's eye clean and you can't see anything at that huge magnification (compare to the actual size, the head of a pen cap) - why are you paying for something you can't see? It's personal preference and I know some PS'ers like mind clean diamonds so it's entirely up to you. I personally pay for color and cut - those things I can actually see (see my diamond? It's an eye clean I1, so I'm terribly biased!) I like to present all options to newbies because I understand the learning process and went through it myself. Clarity does not equal sparkle, cut does. You choosing cut as a focus is already a big WIN! :)
 
webdiva offers great advice. then again i'm a very big "bang for you buck" type of person
 
Thanks again for the responses.

GMUAlum08: I think everyone is a "bang for the buck"-type person; it's just a matter of how to define "bang." For you, it seems to be size. For my girlfriend, it's fire and brilliance. So for better or worse, I've got to go with what she says she wants, not with what I may think she wants.

webdiva: No, I haven't spoken with anyone at WF yet, but it sounds like that's what I need to do. And yes, my girlfriend specifically said she liked solitaire when we looked together. She does not generally wear much make-up or jewelry, so she would like something simple and elegant -- hence my focus on a stunning, but modestly sized, solitaire. Finally, thanks to your encouragement, I'm going to try to look at some SI1 stones and try to focus on eye-clean over mind-clean. :-)

Thanks again to all!
 
Just understand that virtual inventory doesn't have the trade in policy and only has a 10 day return policy. You may be better off going with JA for virtual inventory.
 
GET 3 FREE HCA RESULTS JOIN THE FORUM. ASK FOR HELP
Jewelry Blog
PriceScope-Concierge-Ad
Find prime cuts.
Top