Markup

[tahoet]

Does anybody know how much markup there is on a 20,000.00 stone.

 

[strmrdr]

Internet or b&m or tif?

There is a big difference.

%10-%25 internet
25%-100% b&m
200% tiffany

 

[pqcollectibles]

Internet Vendors like White Flash, Good Old Gold, Nice Ice, Dirt Cheap Diamonds, etc. tend to operate on very low profit margins. In the 10% to 20% max range. Blue Nile, Mondera, and others range higher. More like 30% to 40%. Local B&M's,........ ????? Best guess. Tiffany's and other major name jewelers,.... HA!

If you post the stats on your diamond we can possibly find comps for you to give you an idea of pricing.

 

[dunndeal]

While it is true that most B&M's work on higher margins you can find some that are willing to work close. The biggger the sale the tighter the margin gets and smart B&M merchants know that. Use the internet as guideline to keep the B&M's in line and you should fare well with someone that wants you as a client.

 

[dunndeal]

Oops! I forgot to answer your original question. It really depends on how the person aquired the diamond. He might have bought the $20,000 stone over the counter from an estate. Or he bought it while purchasing several hundred thousand dollars worth of other diamonds in a business. Or he could have gotten it on consignment. In each case the margin probably would be different! Just make sure not to buy it over market value!

 

[derekinla]

Sean,

Slick flash site you have their.... Oh, and welcome to PS

 

[Richard Sherwood]

Yeah, Sean, nice site and interesting history.

Welcome aboard.

 

[dunndeal]

Thanks for the welcome

this is fun!

 

[elmo]

I have a question about your website, Sean, which hopefully includes a followup by Richard. Sorry to hijack your thread, Tahoe

.

Sean, your site says that fancy color stones have an additional numeric color grade 1-10 depending on where the apparent color falls within the GIA grade. Your example was of a seller asking their supplier for a fancy intense 8 meaning close to vivid. I've been shopping for fancy color lately and have never heard of this. How common is this? Richard, do appraisals typically include this information, or would this be covered only by a less-specific comment about quality of color saturation within the grade?

 

[diamondsman]

It all depend on the "apettite" of the b&m, or internet vendor,you'll find most internet vendors are working on a lower profit margin and depend on a big volume,some are even working as low as 5%-10% above cost,which is a hell of a bargain for consumers.

 

[dunndeal]

Elmo

Good question. The numeric system is primarily a dealer to dealer talk (some people might just say a strong intense instead of the number and it just like anything else you'd rate on a scale of 1-10. 1 being the worst and 10 being the best. There are wide variations in saturation within each specific grade in fancy colored diamonds and this does affect the value. If you look at a few of the same grade side by side I'm sure you'll pick up the difference as well.

Let me know if this was helpful

 

[valeria101]

Interesting thread... and long awaited.

It seems that the anwer to the original anwer wld be...
"depends on WHERE you are buying" - and this applies to consumers and down the supply chain until a hole in the ground

Price-costing, they call it...

One can really talk about a 'markup' when the other side of the coin faces up: sellers make up prices according to their cost (Cost-pricing). Not a great kind of business at all. I hope that these interlinked datanbases with diamonds listed from various sources don't end up (marginally) close to such disaster scenario. Who would want cheap diamonds?

 

[Richard Sherwood]

-----------
Sean, your site says that fancy color stones have an additional
numeric color grade 1-10 depending on where the apparent color falls
within the GIA grade. Your example was of a seller asking their
supplier for a fancy intense 8 meaning close to vivid. I've been
shopping for fancy color lately and have never heard of this. How
common is this? Richard, do appraisals typically include this
information, or would this be covered only by a less-specific comment
about quality of color saturation within the grade?
-----------

I'm not familiar with this sub-grading as well. Sean, tell us a little more about it. Do you mean that each grading category (ie fancy, fancy intense) is then sub-divided into 10 numerical categories, or are you saying that the 1 to 10 grade ranges from fancy thru fancy vivid (ie fancy 1-4, fancy intense 5-8, fancy vivid 9-10)?

Elmo, the fancy color appraisals I do have the word description (fancy light thru fancy vivid), along with a word description of the modifying hue to the base color.

I would like to see a more detailed grading of the tone and saturation of fancy colored diamonds, which is why the 1-10 description mentioned on Sean's site sounds interesting. Currently the range seems too broad for each of the categories. As a hypothetical case, you could have two 1 carat fancy intense yellows with the same percentage modifying hue, with one costing quite a bit more than the other because it is more saturated, yet both described with the same word description "fancy intense yellow".

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

GIA concurrently developed 2 color grading systems.
GIA GTL developed its odd lab system for diamonds which is interesting to test when you are at a trade fair and see 50 yellow Fancy Light, Fancy, Fancy intense etc side by side in booths - there is no consistency and huge gaps.

At the same time or slightly earlier Debbie Hiss (now with De Beers dia info) from the educational side championed a wonderful color grading system more like Howard Rubin's and the munsell system.

It used 0-10 for tone and for satruation with a hue descriptor. This is the method I think you guys are refferring to.

Trouble is the method (that was backed up with sets or 6mm round plastic color masters in 2 big folders that I bought and used for years) died because GIA GTL went a different way.
Pity!

The best color grading system for pink diamonds would be the Argyle system.
http://www.preciousmetals.com.au/fancycoloured.asp

It would have been good if GIA had have attemted to use a simpler system like this

Un

 

[elmo]

Garry, I think Sean means what Richard described...here's the quote from the website. I agree that in the stones we've seen, there can be a fairly noticeable difference in saturation and evenness of apparent color even though the the GIA calls all fancy intense yellow with even distribution.