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Need advice, is H color good enough for 5 stone ring?

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feyesbest

Rough_Rock
Joined
Oct 11, 2009
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PSers, please give me advice. I need your help!!

I plan on purchasing this 5 stone wedding band from a very reputable jewelry store in downtown Boston. The ring in the picture is by Memoire. This is the ring I want but do not want to pay the designer label price. I fell in love with this ring in the store and I told the saleslady that our budget was $2800. She kind of scoffed and was like, "With all respect, where did you see a 5 stone similar ring for that price?" and I said "Bluenile.com" and she said,"oh...please don''t get your wedding band from an online vendor, it''s a safer idea to get it from a store." So, then she said that the Memoire ring was way more than our budget but that the store makes a ring almost identical to it and she could get it close to our budget. The prices she came back with were this:

Memoire, retails $7200, my price $6100, white gold
The jewelry store''s own copy cat version: retails for $3195, my price would be $2700, white gold, G H or I color, "very good" cut. The stones are .25 each, with 5 stones total.

I''m surprised she came back at $2700 because I cannot even build a bluenile identical ring for less than $3,000 with identical 4Cs. Also, I went to another really nice store in the city and their exact same ring was $4500!!! I think my saleslady purposely came in under the price I quoted so that I buy from there. Truthfully, $2800 is NOT our bottom line and now I am wondering if I can get a better color diamond (like an F colorless) but when I asked the salelady if I should she said that there really is no point in getting better than the near colorless range when you have that small of diamonds and a very good cut. I am worried that she may be lying to me in order for me to stay under my "budget" so that I purchase from her.

Please tell me if you think her logic is sound!!! (that spending extra money to get DEF versus GHI in .25 diamonds is pointless)

Thank you in advance!

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I'd be skeptical that the lowball ring is the same quality as the higher priced ones. Just my options, here:
1. H is plenty white for most people. So is G. I has tint. I had a channel set diamond band of 1 ct total with 8 J color diamonds. Those are smaller than .25ct and the tint was obvious to me when I tried to pair them with a high H diamond. NOT a match.
2. Provided that some lab or gemologist has accurately graded the G or H stones, they should be white. I is tinted. I diamonds with fluor face up whiter than a non-flour I, but it's still an I color from the side and maybe from the top in certain lights where the fluor doesn't help.
3. Cut is everything. Very good might not really be very good, lol. And some labs grade stricter than others regarding color and clarity. If the price is too good to be true, then somebody is fibbing about something, IMO. The stones could only be J color or K color and average cut, and the store is hoping you won't know the difference. I'm not impressed with the quality of most of the jewelry I see in retail stores here.

edit: I remember I read years ago that color isn't detectable in .25ct and under, until you get down to L or M or something. I recall reading that in some book about buying diamonds. But I looked to see if I could find that advice here or elsewhere on the 'Net and couldn't find it. Probably plenty of people here will say it's hooey, lol.
 
Date: 10/15/2009 10:11:42 PM
Author: HVVS
I''d be skeptical that the lowball ring is the same quality as the higher priced ones.
I completely agree! For that price you could probably find a 5-stone WG ring with .20 stones that are Ideal cut, F-G color and VVS-VS. Check out Signed Pieces (The Facets Collection), Whiteflash and some of the other reputable online vendors that use Ideal cut stones for comparison. I highly doubt the stones your jewler is suggesting would even come close in quality...
 
I agree with the others - an H can be quite white - my engagement ring is an H and is just dandy with me! The concern here is not the color, but rather the quality of the stones. I think the only reason the price is so low is because they are probably using inferior stones.
 
may i know which store in boston is this?
i know long''s jewelry carries memoire stuff though...
 
Well, the store did say the stones they used will be VG cut instead...
 
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