New to Diamonds

[Here4theRock]

It's getting about time to buy a ring for the girl. After spending a few weeks on diamond merchant sites and Pricescope, I think it's to pull the trigger. Before I do, I want to get some opinions from the community on how they prioritize diamond attributes when choosing a solitaire.

So far I've gathered that the most important C is cut so I am choosing an ideal cut. Next, a majority of people seem willing to sacrifice clarity for color so long as the diamond is eye-clean. Originally I was looking at VVS2 / G, but now I'm tending more towards VS1 / F. And lastly, size is a matter of preference. I like 1.3 carets.

The remaining diamond attributes are less clear to me in terms of what is important: symmetry, polish, cutlet, and florescence. It's easy to search for diamonds that have all the best ratings of each, but it really limits my choices when only looking for excellent / excellent / no cutlet / no florescence. How much visual difference would there be if I stepped down to very good / very good / no cutlet / faint florescence? Would this be more or less equivalent to stepping down to a very good cut from ideal in terms of brilliance?

After some shopping around, I'm down to these two diamonds, but am tending towards the James Allen. Please let me know your thoughts.

http://www.exceldiamonds.com/diamond/221886.html
http://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/F-VS1-Ideal-Cut-Princess-Diamond-1184155.asp

Thanks!

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 10/29/2008 1:01:22 PM
Author:Here4theRock
It's getting about time to buy a ring for the girl. After spending a few weeks on diamond merchant sites and Pricescope, I think it's to pull the trigger. Before I do, I want to get some opinions from the community on how they prioritize diamond attributes when choosing a solitaire.

So far I've gathered that the most important C is cut so I am choosing an ideal cut. Next, a majority of people seem willing to sacrifice clarity for color so long as the diamond is eye-clean. Originally I was looking at VVS2 / G, but now I'm tending more towards VS1 / F. And lastly, size is a matter of preference. I like 1.3 carets.

The remaining diamond attributes are less clear to me in terms of what is important: symmetry, polish, cutlet, and florescence. It's easy to search for diamonds that have all the best ratings of each, but it really limits my choices when only looking for excellent / excellent / no cutlet / no florescence. How much visual difference would there be if I stepped down to very good / very good / no cutlet / faint florescence? Would this be more or less equivalent to stepping down to a very good cut from ideal in terms of brilliance?

After some shopping around, I'm down to these two diamonds, but am tending towards the James Allen. Please let me know your thoughts.

http://www.exceldiamonds.com/diamond/221886.html
http://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/F-VS1-Ideal-Cut-Princess-Diamond-1184155.asp

Thanks!

You could certainly consider diamonds with VG/ VG/ NC and fluorescence without a problem, it would definitely broaden the options for you. You may not notice any difference with polish and symmetry from good and above to the naked untrained eye, it depends on what you want as part of your diamond's finish.

Fluorescence - faint to medium and even strong are usually fine. Occasionally a diamond with strong to very strong blue can make the diamond look cloudy in some lights, but this is rare and a trusted vendor will be able to advise should such a diamond be under consideration.

The JA diamond you would need to request pics and an Idealscope image, ASET is preferable with fancy shapes but they don't offer those to the best of my knowledge. Same with the Excel diamond. If you can get that info and post, then we can go from there.

 

[Mrs W]

I think pricess cuts its safer to stay with AGS certs......couldn''t really tell you about those diamonds you posted, i do know that Excel does carry nice AGS pricess cuts tho. I was looking and found this http://www.goodoldgold.com/diamond/2421/

there are more diamonds, i would look in the pricescope cut quality search for more