Looking for Help: Princess Diamond and General Confusion

[TooMuchInformation]

Wow.

Please, bare with me though this somewhat massive post.

Of all the things that I''ve tried to learn in my life, nothing has really been as unexact and objective as diamonds. I''ve been reading posts like mad, visiting Web sites, checking out stores, and I''m seriously about to loose my mind.

Don''t get me wrong, I''m enjoying myself, but I''m just overloaded with information!

After looking at a bunch of solitaire engagement ring designs, I found one that I''m partial to (found it at a local jewlers, and haven''t been able to find a similar one online), and I''m also fairly certain that I''d like to go with a Princess cut. I''m considering buying my diamond online (WhiteFlash is looking good), and getting the actual ring elsewhere and getting it mounted locally. Work work work.

Anyways. I''ve been searching on whiteflash.com for a while, looking through all of their diamonds, and I''m totally confused. There are so many listed proporties that I just don''t know what to do with myself. I''m afraid.

Take this Princess cut for example:

Item Code: 1983771
Price: $4,564.00
Report: GIA
Shape: Princess
Carat: 0.95
Color: E
Clarity: VVS2
Depth: 75.9
Table: 76
Girdle: MD
Polish: Excellent
Symmetry: Excellent
Culet: None
Fluorescence: Negligible
Measurements: 5.43-5.28X4.01
Length/Width: 1.03

Looks nice. It has lots of Excellents (that is good, right? ). BUT, the Depth/Table ratio doesn''t look favorable (which may or may not matter, I gather). High clarity and color, looks happy everywhere. But. Will it look stunning? From what I gather, it''s impossible to know without looking at the diamond in person.

So. What''s my question?

Basically, I just need some help. Does this diamond look like a good potential for purchase? What''s the deal with Polish and Symmetry? How much of an affect do they have on the diamonds overall appearance? Why is this so complicated? (and I haven''t even got started with my questions!)

All I want to do is to get a nice diamond that my wife-to-be will be happy with (okay, she''d settle for something dirt cheap), and might get some oh''s and ah''s from her friends (girls like this), and I don''t want to overpay at some local shady jewler that marks things up like crazy.

As much as I''d like to continue ranting, I''m going to keep it at this.

I don''t want to scare someone away from responding to me, though I''m sure that I might have already.

Also, my plan would be to purchase a diamond online, and have it verified and appraised by a local jeweler to confirm that I''m getting (hopefully more than) what I paid for, at least when compared to all the local shops. Have other people done this? Is it difficult to find a good local jewler to do something like this, and does the diamond vendor (WhiteFlash) generally have no problems with this sort of thing!

(Okay. I''m turning blue in the face now. Time to stop.)

 

[yngdaniel]

Well, from my research on the boards, I'd think you might be able to get more bang for your buck by dropping the clarity and color a few notches. Cut is the most important factor in the eye appeal of a stone, a poorly cut stone will look worse than a well cut stone of lower clarity, color, and can appear larger than similar carat stones that are cut too deeply.

I'm going with an H SI1 in princess, though my stone is a bit smaller than yours. Smaller stones also seem to be more forgiving of color and clarity problems. Polish and symmetry are minor factors, you shouldn't need to worry about it unless they're 'poor'.

 

[fuffi]

Buying a diamond is indeed complicated and scary. There was a post here last week that had a lot of helpful info on princess cuts:
https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/desirable-princess-cut-table-depth.4987/

As for polish/symmetry, I would personally look for good or better in polish and very good or better in symmetry. This is just my personal perference.

The diamond you've posted above may look great to the eye, but I would pass for a couple of reasons. It's a little too deep which means you're sacrificing spread and basically paying for a diamond that looks smaller than it should. Also, VS clarity grade looks as good as VVS to the eye. I would put the dollar difference into carat weight.

It's common to have your diamond sent to an independent appraiser. Online diamond vendors do this all the time.

 

[yngdaniel]

Just a correction, I should only have said that polish was minor. Symmetry I'm not really sure about, I haven't seen anyone comment all that directly on it.

 

[TooMuchInformation]

Thanks very much for your feedback! It's very much appreciated!

From what I've heard, cut does seem to be the most important. I have a somewhat skewed vision of this, however, because while I was browsing Spence Diamonds here in Calgary (just looking, really! ), I was shown a 1 carat VS and VVS. The VVS was FAR more brilliant, and in hindsight, this was almost surely due to a better cut and had nothing to do with clarity. They also wanted almost 14K CDN for the VVS (seriously).

While I'm at it, I have a few more questions.

What do the following terms refer to in a princess cut, and is there some place that I can find a good diagram explaining these and detailing their impact on the overall performance and appearance of a Princess cut?

Depth, Table, and Girdle

Also, Symmetry is kinda obvious (how symmetrical the diamond is ), but what's the deal with Polish? If a diamond has a bad polish rating, you would think that you could do something about that (polish, imo, sounds like a temporary thing).

What about "Culet", and "Fluoresence"?

Finally, it seems like purchasing a diamond from whiteflash.com might ding me really bad in taxes and duty. Does anyone from Canada have any experience in importing diamonds from the USA, and if so, what kinds of taxes and duty did you end up paying?

Is there any places that have a *really* good explanation of all these terms and how they work with a Princess cut? I've found that finding good Princess-cut information isn't nearly as easy as it is for a more tradditional cut.

Thanks again for everyone's response so far!

 

[TooMuchInformation]

Okay. Looking through some archives, I found this site:

http://www.siriusdiamonds.com/pages/princess.html

They seem to have a nice diagram of what (almost) all of the measurements on a princess are for. However, what does depth mean? Is a high table really good?

 

[Rhino]

Hi toomuch,




If you'd like to see the info you're looking for drop me a pm and I'll link ya. Links from vendors are forbidden on the forum.




Rhino