Hi all - another newbie here looking for some guidance on an engagement ring. I''ve been looking around online and at b&m stores for about two weeks now, and I''m ready to get it all over with! Decisions with too many variables stress me out.
Anyway, here''s my situation. My GF and I went to a lot of b&m stores (Shane, Jared, etc.) in our area to get an idea of what type of setting she likes, and she ended up picking one from Shane that was available in WG or platinum. The WG one was about $950, and will probably be the one I go with.
We also spent some time at each store talking about diamonds (4 C''s, yada, yada, yada). Even though I have already planned to buy the diamond online, I wanted to try to gain some "hands on" experience. In most situations, the sales person would bring out 2-3 loose diamonds at a time, and let us see if we could tell the difference. The ones we were looking at were anywhere from F to J in color, SI clarity, 1 - 1.25 carats, and "good" cut (so they told me). We also looked at some AGS0 "ideal" diamonds that were very overpriced. For example, a 1C, H, SI1 AGS0 at one store was $8000...I wrote down the dimensions and put them in the HCA at home and it didn''t even score below a 2!
I had done a bit of reading around on PS, so my thoughts going into these stores was that I was least willing to compromise on cut (the most important ''C''!), but I actually had a hard time telling the difference between most of them, except for the ones that were REALLY poorly cut. Some stores even let us take them outside in the sunlight and look at them. My GF seemed to be very good at grading the color of all of the diamonds just by looking at them, so I''m thinking I''d like to stay in the F-H range.
So here are my questions:
1) If cut is REALLY that important, why could neither of us see a difference? Was it because we probably didn''t see any that would have scored below a 2 on the HCA?
2) Do either of these diamonds look like a good deal? I''m trying to stay in the $6k -$7k range.
$6940 on PS:
http://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/F-SI1-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1087025.asp?b=16&a=12&c=77&cid=131
$7060 on PS:
http://www.whiteflash.com/hearts_arrows/A-Cut-Above-H-A-cut-diamond-210369.htm
3) I''ve seen a couple different opinions, but is there a preferred way to handle a setting from a b&m store and an online diamond? Send the setting to the diamond supplier? Send them both to an independent setter? Are there advantages/disadvantages between the two?
I apologize for the long-winded post...I''m trying to get all my questions answered at once
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