Loose diamond weed-out tool (Reinvented)

[CMD]

Hi all,

I have recently proposed to my girlfriend and I am thrilled to say that she said yes! The thing is she has no clue that the whole engagement ring and diamond selection took me 3 months… I am good at maths and I work as an analyst, so most people will know what I mean when I say it took me so long just because I was looking for “perfection”.

I have read all there is about finding the perfect and I can pretty much summarise my findings like this:
1. Find a reputable diamond dealer
2. Make a diamond shortlist. While there are a whole lot of other things to consider, most of people will agree that the diamond cut is the key:
a. Check that diamond is GIA Excellent (pretty much filter to show Excellent cut only)
b. Check that diamond would receive AGS-0 (Ideal) Light Performance by the new guidelines (Need to investigate guideline tables)
c. Check HCA rating to be on a safe side (Need to use the tool)
3. Request ASET / Ideal – Scope images for shortlisted diamonds
4. You have a winner

Not all retailers offer freely available ASET images (especially the ones located outside the USA, I am from the UK) and hence it was one hell of the time consuming task to create an ever changing shortlist (diamonds come and go fast, especially good ones). I realised that there will be people just like me choosing a loose diamond from a list with no access to the actual diamond photo and wondering whether it could be “a good diamond”. I wanted to give something back to the diamond communities around the globe and created a free online tool which combines all the checks mentioned in step 2:

• Check is done against GIA’s Excellent cut guidelines
• Check is then done against AGS Performance Cut guidelines
• All diamonds which are not GIA Excellent and AGS-0 in Light Performance are rejected
• All diamonds which have proportions which work for small carat stones but not for the large carat are rejected (making the tool carat weight independent)
• HCA check is done and user is notified when HCA is > 2. I have seen many stones which are HCA 3 and have perfect light return, so this indication is purely for someone who really cares about HCA reading.
• Result is instant and you can check as many diamonds as you wish, for free

Now then, I am not sure if this counts as advertising if I now post the link to this tool… I have spent hundreds of hours perfecting the algorithm and I am not charging to use it, so before I mention how to access it, could someone confirm whether this tool would be of any use for someone other than me and whether I can post the link to it here without being banned?
Any feedback and suggestions on how I could make this tool better (based on the description) is also welcome.

Thanks for your attention, PriceScope has an amazing community

 

[HopeDream]

Hi CMD,
It's great that you're working on a diamond search tool, but doesn't the PS advanced search already do that?
https://www.pricescope.com/diamond-search-results/
There are check boxes for AGS0, GIA excellent and HCA score etc.

It seems like all the functions you mentioned are there except for the size-based proportion thingy.

 

[CMD]

Hi CMD,
It's great that you're working on a diamond search tool, but doesn't the PS advanced search already do that?
https://www.pricescope.com/diamond-search-results/
There are check boxes for AGS0, GIA excellent and HCA score etc.

It seems like all the functions you mentioned are there except for the size-based proportion thingy.

Hi HopeDream,

PriceScope search tool is great for all diamonds which have ASET / Ideal Scope images. Now if you select "AGS0" and "GIA" in the search you will get a list of diamonds which have been certified as "Excellent" by GIA and diamonds which have been certified AGS0 (Ideal) by AGS. The key difference is that my tool checks BOTH at the same time, so if diamond is GIA certified it will show whether it would theoretically ALSO get AGS0 if it was certified by AGS and vice versa giving a better chance of that diamond having a good overall performance without seeing an ASET image. Size-Based proportion "thingy" also plays a role towards reducing a risk of picking a bad performer.

Please also note that my tool is NOT a diamond search tool, it does not return a list of diamonds. It is pretty much an alternative to the HCA tool to weed out potential bad performing diamonds.

I hope difference is clear!

 

[WinkHPD]

It might well be useful to many people who do not wish to spend the hundreds of hours that you have spent.

As for knowing what you are allowed to do, I suggest that you report your post using the "Report Concern" button on the upper right hand corner of your post and ask the moderator to please inform you of the proper path to follow with your idea. It may be that the link you wish to post is expressly forbidden, but they will know for sure so you will not get into trouble for posting it if they say it is allowable.

It might also make the basis for a great article which Andrey would want to host, but again that would be up to him.

There may be some copyright issues as well. I believe that you will need to contact Garry Holloway, the inventor of the HCA to see if he will allow you to freely use his invention in the use or yours.

I can certainly appreciate your desire to be helpful, it is a big part of what makes the community here so wonderful. I do wonder though if you have all the kinks worked out of your system. For example, you said that a diamond must pass both the GIA and AGS top cut grade tests, but there are diamonds in the AGS Cut 0 grade that are outside the GIA system. Your system might then exclude some great diamonds unfairly. This seems counter intuitive since one of my biggest complaints against the GIA system is that it is too inclusive.

In any case, I wish you well and welcome to our community.

Wink

 

[Karl_K]

You have another copyright issue and that is the AGS cutting guidelines and GIA cut grades.
I believe they specifically prohibit them being used in any sort of grading system.

 

[CMD]

It might well be useful to many people who do not wish to spend the hundreds of hours that you have spent.

As for knowing what you are allowed to do, I suggest that you report your post using the "Report Concern" button on the upper right hand corner of your post and ask the moderator to please inform you of the proper path to follow with your idea. It may be that the link you wish to post is expressly forbidden, but they will know for sure so you will not get into trouble for posting it if they say it is allowable.

It might also make the basis for a great article which Andrey would want to host, but again that would be up to him.

There may be some copyright issues as well. I believe that you will need to contact Garry Holloway, the inventor of the HCA to see if he will allow you to freely use his invention in the use or yours.

I can certainly appreciate your desire to be helpful, it is a big part of what makes the community here so wonderful. I do wonder though if you have all the kinks worked out of your system. For example, you said that a diamond must pass both the GIA and AGS top cut grade tests, but there are diamonds in the AGS Cut 0 grade that are outside the GIA system. Your system might then exclude some great diamonds unfairly. This seems counter intuitive since one of my biggest complaints against the GIA system is that it is too inclusive.

In any case, I wish you well and welcome to our community.

Wink

Thanks Wink,

I like you idea re: contacting administration myself before someone else potentially does.
Regarding HCA tool, I give all the credit to the author and I am not directly using HCA's algorithm, I pretty much have manually checked ranges of "allowable" diamond proportions to see whether they would get HCA <= 2 result. I will still double check with Garry to make sure he is OK, hopefully he will be fine since he gets an additional exposure (I had no clue HCA existed until I stumbled upon PriceScope).

I did observe that some combinations of AGS-0 diamonds fall outside GIA Excellent range, but since I am looking at the new AGS-0 tables, this is limited to only a couple combinations, specifically where Table is 52%. So while some exclusion occurs, it's not major and all for the benefit of consumer.

You have another copyright issue and that is the AGS cutting guidelines and GIA cut grades.
I believe they specifically prohibit them being used in any sort of grading system.

Hi Karl,

Interesting, I have obtained all the raw data from AGS and GIA by directly getting in touch with them and explaining what I am working on. I will request confirmation from them in writing if they are still OK with me using that data, but was I was told up to date is that if this is not a new grading system (which it is not, it's just a reference / lookup system) and I do not commercialise it (for which I have no plans to) I am free to use that data. But thanks for heads up!

 

[CMD]

Thanks to Bryan from WhiteFlash for pointing out issue where tool was not accepting 40.9 pavilion. This has been fixed now