My first Post - How do I get the angles?

[mdancel]

I wish I would have found this website 2 weeks ago. It would have saved me some time and frustrations. I''ve been reading and out shopping for an engagement ring for about 2 weeks now. Most of the stones I''ve looked at have a GIA cert so I have no information on Crown and Pavillion Angles. I''ve been asking the jewelers for the angles and they tell me they can not provide them. They then tell me that I''m "thinking" about things too much and that I should just be able to see the brillance difference in a well cut stone.

Question: Any recommendations on how I can get these angles? I live in Colorado Springs and it doesn''t seem that there are any Sarin machines in the city.

 

[Regular Guy]

MDancel,

You may find it helpful to dig into the "beta" program now presented on this site, where you can call in a diamond you would like to see at the "Jeweler of (your) choice." I''m not sure where this program is in its evolution, but you may also be able to read about it further here. Proposed in comments about the program is the suggestion that the diamond you would ask to have brought in to your local Jeweler (and it seems you have about 9 listed Jewelers in your area) could come in with those angles having been already supplied to the dealer, regardless of the fact that they "only" would also come with a GIA cert, not rourtinely also supplying crown & pavilion angles.

Of course, as Gary and others will say, you can invest $25 in an Ideal scope, to help you with the selection process -- but if you do have the benefit of both a) crown & pavilion angles and b) an idealscope, I have to wonder if, by analogy, having (a) isn''t sort of like passing your item first through a key ring to do a test for roundness, and then passing it through (b) with a hoola-hoop to confirm the test.

Chances are, these two data points...having crown & pavillion angles to help you with hard numbers, and also having an ideal scope to help confirm the numbers with your direct observation would be a helpful way to go. However, it may depend on how much total time you''re willing to spend. Although I can believe it would take you perhaps the total of 10 minutes of time to get familiar enough with the use of the idealscope to make effective use of it (as I think has been suggested here), I think there''s a reasonalbe question about where you''re going to get those 10 minutes. Probably, you''d want to go someplace with the scope and get a feel after looking at a good number of diamonds that are already differentiated by quality points, so you can see what had been pre-sorted as good ones and bad ones. But your initial problem is not having this info, and sort available to you to begin with. Me...I''ve never seen or used an Idealscope...but having read about it, I''ve become a believer in its potential effectiveness, just as I had become a quick believer in the HCA, after having only read about it, because the principle made so much sense.

Pursue the numbers. Get an ideal scope. Have fun!

 

[wonka27]

style="WIDTH: 99%; HEIGHT: 172px">Date: 10/30/2004 6:35:35 AM
Author:mdancel

Question: Any recommendations on how I can get these angles? I live in Colorado Springs and it doesn''t seem that there are any Sarin machines in the city.

One thing you could do since you are buying locally is use the AGS website to find a dealer in your area. The AGS certs have the basic info on them. You do have the advantage of using your eyes too, but having the numbers is an important tool as well. Maybe even if you can find 1 or 2 "sweet" diamonds to see what they look like as a baseline, you can go out and use that visual look as reference to others you see without the sarin info.

Good luck!!!