Price for melee diamonds please, need help.

[NewYorker]

Hi, I''m buying diamonds in the diamond district in NY for side stones for ring settings. You can bargan with these people, but I don''t know what price to ask. Here is what I just bought:
2 baguettes .15 ct each (.30ctw) H-I color, SV2-SI1 clarity
2 round .12 ct each (.24ctw) H-I color, SV2-SI1 clarity
I paid $400 for all 4 of them. He first said $535 but I got him down to $400 easily. Now I think I should have said something much lower. I plan to buy more and I need to know how much I should ask for them.
They are really good quality and when I looked through a loupe I couldn''t see ANY inclusions and they looked great!
Any help would be appreciated and if anyone knows a good book or website that would give me price ranges for melee diamonds I would really appreciate it.

 

[NewYorker]

Can someone help me out here????

 

[NewYorker]

Please, anyone out there?!!

 

[NewYorker]

I think I can hear my own echo.... HELLO... hellooooooo

 

[Mara]

Be a little patient. There may not be alot of people on who can help you with this question--hence no responses. Also, forum members come and go throughout the day...so you may have to wait a day or two for a response depending on the question.

I would also run a search on Pscope for smaller stones and see what you find for price comparison. Also sites like tradeshop.com sell accent/melee stones for their custom made rings, so you may want to check out their side stones pricing for comparison. Here is their accent diamond link:

http://www.tradeshop.com/master/melle.shtml

The price sounds good to me though from what I can tell from the tradeshop $$ on the link, if you bought these stones from them they would have been more around $700. Good deal, esp for offline...the sizes are decent as well.

Good luck.

 

[trichrome]

Tell me something,

how do you know these are real? (since you're not seeing any
inclusions and you're not an expert)..

my advice would be to have a look at them with an expert eye..

maybe look at them under fluo light... if none of them fluoresce, then
I would question myself.

Trichrome.

 

[NewYorker]

They're REAL because they are from the Diamond District in NYC. These people wouldn't have much of a business if they were giving you CZs, and it's not call the Cubic Zirconia District.
When I didn't see any inclusions in the baguette, they said they're giving me a better quality than what I asked for. I called my sister's boyfriend who has been working in the Diamond District for years and whose father had worked there (they sell jewelers tools) and he said I should not worry about getting fakes in the Diamond District, but I may be paying too much in general.
I've seen those prices online and I think they are outrageous.
My engagement ring was bought in the diamond district from someone else we know who works there and we got a great deal:
.69 CT
H-I color (strong flourescence so it appears even whiter)
SV1 quality
Bought for $1,500.00
Appraised by GIA for $3,400.00
Not bad.

 

[mike04456]

----------------
On 8/1/2003 1:16:11 PM NewYorker wrote:
Bought for $1,500.00
Appraised by GIA for $3,400.00
Not bad.----------------

GIA does not do appraisals. If there is an appraisal value on the cert, it's not a GIA report.

Appraisal values are very commonly inflated and are no way to judge what kind of a "deal" you got.

 

[Mara]

Random addition, but I know that WhiteFlash's ACA melee stones at .10c are $130 each. Not sure on color/clarity but it's probably something middle of the road like G/SI. So use that as a comparison too. These are Hearts and Arrows melee stones, probably the best cut you can find for stones that small. Two of those size would be around $260.

Baguettes are cheaper than rounds from what I have read. Your $400 still sounds like a good deal to me, but even if you feel as though you paying a little too much....by how much? $50? I wouldn't see the difference being too much more than that.

If your sister's boyfriend works in the DD...why don't you ask him about what typical pricing may be for melee? Seems as though he'd know more than us!

Also as LawGem said..GIA does not do appraisals. If your cert has an appraisal $$ on it, its most likely EGL or similar and their appraisals are always over-inflated for retail.

 

[NewYorker]

No, not GIA appraisal. I don't have the appraisal in front of me, but we were sent to Macy's downtown Manhattan to get it done because they said they are the most reputable. In fact, my husband can't even remember where the appraisal is and we may have lost it.

My sister's boyfriend only sells jewelers tools so he's not an expert on the price of diamonds. I think I got an okay deal but I also think I could have gotten him lower another $25-$50. He was very nice though.
thanks anyway