promised shots of new Eternity Diamond remount......

[rockclimber]

and I would post them if I had them, but I don't

Quick summary: ordered the Tessa and two matching bands, worked with Yoni, who was great, to customize a bit (I'm on a mission to remarry WG and YG. The bands came, they were very pretty, but just didn't work with my stone, finger size, etc. I did however, really like the WG and YG combo. Have sent them back and committed to take a breather to regroup....

Which got me to thinking that I may be suffering from a severe case of DSS, and that maybe instead of investing in a remount, I may want to upgrade. I have a couple issues that I'm hoping the more experienced PS folks and trades people can help me with.

My first hurdle is how to sell/trade my diamond. It's beatiful (to me) but comes with the lesser respected I.G.I certification. For the record, it is a branded "Tolkowsky" diamond - ideal cut, I color, SI(2) clarity, excellent polish and symmetry (assuming the I.G.I has any validity). I've never had an issue with it's appearance and still think she sparkles quite nicely, I just want a little more sparkle! Any thoughts on how to do this?

Secondly, I've been doing a ton of research in hopes of educating myself a bit more on the 4 C's. And while I've always known that cut is job #1, I'm not sure I understand how a diamond's cut is determined. As an example, I stopped into a local independent B&M store and was shown an AGS certified 2.2, I color, SI1 round brilliant. If I plug all the numbers into charts and graphs I find online, it rates as "ideal", but AGS has only graded it a "2" for cut....I'm obviously missing something....can someone help me understand this better?

TIA,

Lynn

 

[MissGotRocks]

We'd need the crown and pavillion angles to assess the stone you just found at the jeweler and the same with your current stone. Sparkle is a bit difficult to define but all cut info will hopefully tell you where your stone falls short.

Got any pictures of it?

 

[rockclimber]

well, the jeweler did email me the AGS report, which came out terrible when I printed it as I'm out of colored ink. I have also somehow managed to delete the email and can't find it (I'm having a tecno-challenged day). There wasn't much to see really in terms of the markings they do for inclusions, etc. However, I did go to the AGS site and pulled up the complete report, and will now try to upload/attach it for review. In terms of my old stone, I don't have any pictures, just the info I shared from the I.G.I cert. Thanks for any light "or sparkle" you can shed lynn

 

[slg47]

AGS gives it a 0 for light performance, but the overall cut grade is 2 because of the very good symmetry.

 

[rockclimber]

ok, so if I'm understanding correctly, normally a "0" is an indication of being higher in quality, but not when it comes to the light performance category? In other words if this stone had a higher number for light performance it might have gotten a higher overall cut grade?

Which raises the logical question: if a diamond is cut well and has good angles/symmetry, etc., why would it have poor light performance? I always thought they were directly correlated....

Boy do I have a lot to learn

 

[slg47]

no, the diamond gets ideal light performance (cut) grade but overall has a grade of 2 because of the very good symmetry.

 

[rockclimber]

so, its the symmetry being very good as opposed to "ideal" or "excellent" that's the killer?

 

[slg47]

yeah AGS gives an overall cut grade and then a grade for 3 factors: light performance, symmetry, and polish. to get the overall grade of 0, must be 0 for all three.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

And just to tag onto what slg said, you can get a good value sometimes on a stone that is graded AGS Excellent when light performance and symmetry are ideal (0) and polish is excellent (1).

 

[rockclimber]

thanks so much for the info....I really appreciate it....can you in essence net it out though, in terms of this stone? Would you walk (run) away from it? The grading system that AGS uses (to me) seems difficult to understand. Does substandard symmetry negate a good cut even when it produces excellent light performance? Would you let your eye determine whether it's a candidate or would you just dump it because of it's overall cut grade?

thanks - Lynn

 

[yssie]

thanks so much for the info....I really appreciate it....can you in essence net it out though, in terms of this stone? Would you walk (run) away from it? The grading system that AGS uses (to me) seems difficult to understand. Does substandard symmetry negate a good cut even when it produces excellent light performance? Would you let your eye determine whether it's a candidate or would you just dump it because of it's overall cut grade?

thanks - Lynn

If you are able to look at it I would definitely do that, and let your eyes judge.

As slg explained AGS grades light performance as one of three parts of the overall cut grade - polish and symmetry are the other two. Symmetry grade is actually the physical (facet meet) symmetry, not the optical (H&A) patterning that appears when you look into the stone. AGS does not consider optical symmetry when assigning a cut grade - both a H&A with picture-perfect hearts as seen through a hearts viewer and a stone with quite distorted arrow and heart patterns may earn light performance, polish, and symmetry scores of 0 for the overall AGS0 cut grade. It is much rarer, but there are also a couple of examples of stones w/ v high optical symmetry that did not get the highest possible grade for physical symmetry.

What matters to you though, and how much it matters, depends entirely on your desires and priorities!