overseas dealings with dirtcheapdiamonds.com

[jteh]

Hi there,
I''m actually on the hunt for an old european cut diamond. thus far, I''ve scoured my local market (Sydney, Australia) and it is proving quite difficult to find a loose stone. for this reason, I am considering turning to online vendors. I have found that dirtcheapdiamonds has quite a good seletion of OEC stones and am contemplating purchasing from them.

My main concerns are what they are like in shipping internationally. Has anybody had experiences with this? Were they good/bad?

On a side note, has anybody dealth with diamondexchangenewyork.com?

 

[RockDoc]

You might want to contact Gary Holloway since he''s in Australia, and possibly Dave Atlas.

Dave buys a lot of antique items, and OEC stones, although he only buys from the public, he does sell these items to jewelers. Perhaps he can direct you to one of his dealers or ship stones for you to see to Gary Holloway since they Dave distributes the Ideal Scope thingy here, so they are friendly with each other.

Rockdoc

 

[oldminer]

I buy and sell quite a few old cut diamonds annually, but it is a distinctly different business than my appraisal business. I buy from ANYONE but only sell to qualified wholesalers. I just don't choose to become a retailer as I know from others that selliing retail is something that would not be a good fit for me. It also would be a direct conflict with appraising diamonds for consumers.

If you want a stone that DCD has, all you need to do is have it sent to us for a nominal cost and we'll make certain it is "as described". We can forweard it directly to you or seal it up and return it to Jim for direct shipping from DCD.....It should be a relatively risk free transaction.

Englsih dealers have told me that few old cut diamonds are about in Australia. The European market has so many more available due to the long history of jewelry making there versus the US or Australia. If we can help you, we'd be glad to try.

 

[valeria101]

There are several sources of old cuts around Pricescope, including these:

There are only 30 pieces listed on Pricescope's database as "old mine" ... does any of those fit your requirements?

Good Old Gold sells them as "cusshions" - they are listing one as example here.

Icestore's database does not allow searches for "old mine" but the shop carryes things like this

Fay Cullen has keeps a rather long list of old cuts on their website here.

And... Diamonds by Lauren lists stones cut in the old mine style every now and then (like these).

DiaGem has posted the darling in the picture below a bit ago - if you like the cut, you might want to ask further

the picture comes from this thread

I don't think any of these shops refuses to ship internationally. Finding out remotely how the stone looks and if you like it is yet another issue. How are you planning to sort that part out ?

 

[jteh]

Rockdoc, oldminer and valeria101, thankyou for all of your comments!
You are very right when you say that there are very few old cuts in Oz oldminer! in about a month of searching, i have found a grand total of 2, a 1.3cat and a 1.16ct si2, F colour that was quoted to me for $12350 aud (~$9500usd) which to me seems quite over priced (it was at a retial shop front though). The si2 grading i think was quite questionable as i could see carbon spots with the naked eye!

valeria 101, thank you for the list of sites to check out. i have visited quite a few of them yet only fay cullen (and dcd and pricescope) seems to explicitly state that they stock oec stones - perhaps the other sides do also have access to loose oec inventory?

regarding your question over how i am going to find out what one remotely looks ike and whether i like it is what has been weighing on my mind.
i think its important, particularly with oecs, to actually look at the stones to see whether i think it is a nice stone. ideally id be able to see side by side comparisons but that is proving very hard here in oz...hence my consideration of online vendors. numbers are useful i think in narrowing a selection down but the real proof i feel is in actually seeing a stone!

i guess it is a good thing that alot of online vendors have a no questions asked money back policy should i not like the stone but that brings into the equation issues about insurance, postage, handling, customs and other things as the stone needs to be shipped over international borders!