Need advice buying diamon from a distributor

[DiggyDiamond]

Well I’ve decided to buy an ering for my GF. I’ve read countless articles and consider myself to be pretty educated and knowledgeable enough to make a somewhat informed decision.

I’m looking at getting a .7-.8 carat princess cut diamond. G or above, (eye clean) SI1-VS1, 68%-74% Depth, 65%-69% Table, No Florescence, Thn-SLK Girdle, VG or EX Polish & Symmetry, 1.0-1.4 Ratio, GIA or AGS certificate.

I’ve looked at the mall stores, Jared’s, small local jewelers. I’ve searched online, Whiteflash, James Allen, Blue Nile, ect… Jared’s had the nicest diamonds at the store but prices were too high as were the rest of the B&M stores I visited. I’ve really come to appreciate what these high quality internet sites have to offer. I was dead set on ordering my diamond from Whiteflash because they’ve got the ACA grade princess diamonds. We’ll I still have plenty of time before I need to make my purchase so I’m still searching for the right diamond.

I had heard that my uncle has a contact (old high school friend) in the diamond business so I reached out to him. His contact is the owner of a diamond distributor business. I went there today and they definitely deal in a lot of diamonds. I would say they had thousands of diamonds at the locations. I was told they sell there diamonds to a lot of the jewelry stores. They don’t normally sell to individuals. There wasn’t show room and it was pretty tight security in an inconspicuous building. It was strickly a business to move diamonds.

This distributor only deals with GIA and EGL-USA certified diamonds. They are going to find me some diamonds that meet my specs so I can look at them. They said they would call me in about a week once they get the diamonds at there location.

I feel like I’m going to be cutting out a middle man by dealing with this distributor. I feel like I can get a better deal then I can get else where by doing this.

With that being said I have still have a lot of concerns.

Have anybody here dealt directly with a distributor when buying your diamond?

What are the risks in dealing directly with a distributor? Are there warning signs I should pick up on?

What kind of ball park price could I expect to get from them? Is that possible to gauge?

Thanks for helping me out. I’d just like to know what everyone thinks since I’m a newb to buying diamonds.

 

[somethingshiny]

Welcome to PS.

I hope one of the professionals will chime in to address your concerns.

But, for me, I wonder....are you going to be positive you''re receiving what you think you are? Are you sure you can identify a real certificate? Will he let you have an independent appraisal prior to buying? Is he going to push you into a piece of frozen spit? Are you good with not having a return or upgrade policy?

For me, it''d be worth a bit of extra money to have the security of buying from a respectable vendor.

But, either way, good luck.

 

[Skippy123]

The online vendors are pretty reasonable; I would contact Whiteflash, Winfield''s or Good Old Gold and tell them what you want. I rather be able to return a stone if you are not happy with it; you already sound nervous about this. If you really want to go this route I would send the stone to an appraiser to verify the info on the certificate, but not sure if the distributor will let you do that. Hope that helps but the online guys are reasonably priced and some vendors have a lifetime upgrade policy.