Newbie Do you think this is a very good diamond at a good price?

[TZMMY3099]

First, I''m so thankful for the amount of time and effort everyone puts into this forum. I found this forum about a month ago and it''s been incredibly helpful. Thanks ina dvance for all of your help

I have a few questions and would like to get your thoughts on the following:

1. Is this a good diamond to buy based on the information below?
2. My concern is when I keyed in the diamond results in the diamond cut anlaysis it came up with this. Should I be concerned it''s not excellent?

Factor Grade
Light Return Very Good
Fire Good
Scintillation Good
Spread
or diameter for weight Very Good
Total Visual Performance 3.7 - Very Good - Worth buying if the price is right

3. Price is a little over $13K - is that a good deal ? A good Price??
4. I looked at the idealscope. I could not get a copy. It showed mostly red. A bit of white in the corners but mostly red

Facts
A. I saw this diamond in person and I had someone else look at it. It''s totally eye clean even from the sides.
B. It maybe a J in Color but it totally faces up white even from the sides. I even turned it upside down and compared it to another I. I could not tell the difference between the I and the J. I took it outside and compared it to the other stone. I saw no yellow and it was as white as the other GIA certified I.

Diamond Information: Diamond Details:
Certificate: GIA
Shape: Round
Cut: Select Ideal™
Carat: 2.51
Color: J
Clarity: SI2
Polish = Excellent
Cut Grade = Excellent
Florescence = none
Polish = excellent
Symmetry Excellent

Diamond Proportions:
Measurements: 8.72-8.67-5.39
Depth Percentage: 62 %
Table Percentage: 58 %
Crown Angle = 35.0
Pavillion Angle = 41.2

 

[stone-cold11]

The price looks very good to me.

If you like it, go for it.

 

[Lorelei]

The price is low, it has steep deep angles which concern me, but it sounds like you have done your due diligence with an IS and various inspections.

 

[FB.]

I worry a little about SI2's with inclusions that are hard to find - especially when clouds are listed on the certificate but not plotted on the chart (often listed as "clouds not shown").
My concern is that the stone is slightly cloudy all-over, which you will struggle to notice, but which can affect light passage through the stone. Even the light-impairment of some GIA-cert VS-clarity clouds look quite scary when viewed with my hand-lens.

I've seen a couple of "eye-clean" stones with "clouds not shown" that, when compared carefully to other stones, were found to have impaired light transmission, but it did not show up as "leakage".

May I ask the GIA cert number, so that I can look at GIA's comments - for my own curiosity?

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 7/2/2009 7:07:10 AM
Author: FB.
I worry a little about SI2's with inclusions that are hard to find - especially when clouds are listed on the certificate but not plotted on the chart (often listed as 'clouds not shown').
My concern is that the stone is slightly cloudy all-over, which you will struggle to notice, but which can affect light passage through the stone. Even the light-impairment of some GIA-cert VS-clarity clouds look quite scary when viewed with my hand-lens.

I've seen a couple of 'eye-clean' stones with 'clouds not shown' that, when compared carefully to other stones, were found to have impaired light transmission, but it did not show up as 'leakage'.

May I ask the GIA cert number, so that I can look at GIA's comments - for my own curiosity?

Actually the comment " clouds not shown" usually isn't an issue, it is when clouds are marked on the clarity plot as grade makers that could be an issue and sometimes interfere with brilliance in SI grades.

 

[FB.]

Interesting.

I (she

) has a GIA-cert 1ct VS1 and the few crystal inclusions are what I'd classify as VVS1-sized. Two near-pinpoint sized crystals are marked on the plot (under the table - not far below the surface) and so is an extremely tiny inclusion determined to be a feather (GIA must've used very high magnificaiton to differentiate the feather from a tiny crystal).
Clouds are not shown on the plot.
But the stone has a comment "clouds not shown" and in the middle of the table, at a medium depth inside the stone, is a loose cluster of probably 100 pinpoints bordering on clouds that merge into one large, thin (it's not a thick, dense cloud), but a widespread cloud that, when viewed carefully with the lens, is slightly murky, when the focus of the lens is brought right into the pinpoints. The extreme spread of the pinpoints goes under about 25% of the table area.
If GIA consider that to be acceptable as a VS1 cloud (it has a GIA-cert), I would be very careful of multiple "clouds not shown" comments in SI grades, for fear of hard-to-detect murkiness.

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 7/2/2009 7:39:03 AM
Author: FB.
Interesting.

I (she

) has a GIA-cert 1ct VS1 and the few crystal inclusions are what I'd classify as VVS1-sized. Two near-pinpoint sized crystals are marked on the plot (under the table - not far below the surface) and so is an extremely tiny inclusion determined to be a feather (GIA must've used very high magnificaiton to differentiate the feather from a tiny crystal). Possibly, clarity grading is performed using 10X mag and thus the grade is given.
Clouds are not shown on the plot.
But the stone has a comment 'clouds not shown' and in the middle of the table, at a medium depth inside the stone, is a loose cluster of probably 100 pinpoints bordering on clouds that merge into one large, thin, but widespread cloud that, when viewed closely, is slightly murky, when the focu of the lens is brought right into the pinpoints. The extreme spread of the pinpoints goes under about 25% of the table area. For all intents and purposes the comment clouds not shown means that it is just mentioned for the sake of completeness as they are in the graders opinion too insignificant to plot and to do so would make the clarity plot look messy and offputting to a buyer.
If GIA consider that to be acceptable as a VS1 cloud (it has a GIA-cert), I would be very careful of multiple 'clouds not shown' comments in SI grades, for fear of hard-to-detect murkiness. Usually clouds not shown in SI clarity grades is not an issue, however there can be exceptions to the rule, clarity is graded by humans so always best to have such a diamond inspected by a trusted vendor.

 

[FB.]

Quite likely, the pinpoints/cloud would - as you say - have frightened a potential buyer and made the plot very messy, since the area covered by the pinpoints covers about 25% of the area directly under the middle of the table, but at a medium depth.
But I reckon that this sparse cloud probably blocks more passage of light than a handful of VS2 grade crystals would.
Of course, a VS-cloud will block a little bit of light over a large area. A VS-crystal would cause a total impairment of light in a small part of the diamond. As someone once said to me; the difference between rain and fog. Crystals are like looking through rain. Clouds are like looking through fog. Just because you can't see the water drops in fog, doesn't mean that light transmission will be better than when looking through raindrops into the distance. It is not unusual for fog to drop visibility to a tenth of a mile. In rain, visibility is normally at least a couple of miles.

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 7/2/2009 7:56:18 AM
Author: FB.
Quite likely, the pinpoints/cloud would - as you say - have frightened a potential buyer and made the plot very messy, since the area covered by the pinpoints covers about 25% of the area directly under the middle of the table, but at a medium depth.
But I reckon that this sparse cloud probably blocks more passage of light than a handful of VS2 grade crystals would.
Of course, a VS-cloud will block a little bit of light over a large area. A VS-crystal would cause a total impairment of light in a small part of the diamond. As someone once said to me; the difference between rain and fog. Crystals are like looking through rain. Clouds are like looking through fog. Just because you can't see the water drops in fog, doesn't mean that light transmission will be better than when looking through raindrops into the distance. It is not unusual for fog to drop visibility to a tenth of a mile. In rain, visibility is normally at least a couple of miles.

Could possibly block some light, whether the human eye would pick up on it....maybe....maybe not...Depends. Been many a lively discussion on this subject!

I have had some very frightening experiences driving in fog, we get it a lot in Blighty!

 

[FB.]

I think that it has been suggested that human senses work on a pseudo-logarithmic scale, so they need about 10x the difference in stimulus (light/sound etc) to detect what they believe is a 2x change.
If true, that would mean a diamond could lose 90% of it''s actual brightness, but be perceived by the human eye to only have lost half it''s brightness.

 

[TZMMY3099]

Thank You. Forgive me for the stupid question but why do the steep deep angles concern you? I''m going back into look at this again. I think I concentrated too much on the color and clarity. Any suggestions on what to look for or what to ask?

 

[TZMMY3099]

Thank You for your help. The GIA number = 2101395507

 

[FB.]

Why fussiness about angles?

If the angles aren''t within certain compatible ranges, the light entering the stone does not get reflected in the right direction, which can lead to loss of light and dark areas in the stone, or lack of performance in more demanding light conditions.

Not all "steep-deep" stones are bad, but you need to treat them with caution; I have one (chosen "by eye") that I have examined exhaustively for problems with light handling, but I can''t find any major faults.

But the GIA round-off some of their proportion numbers or angles and I guess that my stone happens to be on the lucky side of the rounding-off, that allows it to function very well.

It has the following specifications:
Table: 56%
Crown angle: 35.5''
Pavilion angle: 41.2''
Star: 55%
Lower half: 75%
Girdle: medium-slightly thick
Culet: none
Polish: Ex
Symmetry: Ex
Total depth: 62.8%

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 7/2/2009 8:48:13 AM
Author: TZMMY3099
Thank You. Forgive me for the stupid question but why do the steep deep angles concern you? I'm going back into look at this again. I think I concentrated too much on the color and clarity. Any suggestions on what to look for or what to ask?

Because light leakage can result because the angles aren't a good fit. The leakage can show with the diamond looking ' dead' in some lights, or you can see a dark ring around the table ( ring of death) or just dark patches on the surface. This is the light escaping where it should be going through the diamond and being reflected back to your eye as sparkle.

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 7/2/2009 8:29:13 AM
Author: FB.
I think that it has been suggested that human senses work on a pseudo-logarithmic scale, so they need about 10x the difference in stimulus (light/sound etc) to detect what they believe is a 2x change.
If true, that would mean a diamond could lose 90% of it''s actual brightness, but be perceived by the human eye to only have lost half it''s brightness.

Thats very interesting!

 

[FB.]

As I feared, GIA 2101395507 has the comment "additional clouds not shown". I would be nervous about SI2's with clouds that are not precisely indicated on the plot. As Lorelei says; the clouds may be insignificant. But they could be quite thick and extensive if they're what is making the stone fall into the SI2 grade.

Personally speaking, I can't ever see me buying any SI2 stone. I would not go lower than an SI1 and even then, I'd give it a very good inspection. As a guess, I'd say that only about 30% of SI1's would be satisfactory to me and only about 10% of SI2's.
To most people, probably double or even triple those percentages would be adequate. I'm just a little picky about my inclusions.