amandaz
Rough_Rock
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2013
- Messages
- 35
Hello Pricescopers!
I’m finally nearing the end of my engagement ring quest process, and I feel that I owe this website a huge debt of gratitude for getting me to this stage so I wanted to update you on my adventure.
A few weeks ago I honestly had no idea what I was looking for in an engagement ring-- every ring I’ve seen on this site is gorgeous (and doesn’t help narrow it down at all!). At first I thought I wanted a ring with side baguettes, and some of you left me helpful comments on how to go about achieving this setting with my budget, but a short trip to Tiffany helped me conclude a classic round solitaire is the one for me! Not wanting to pay the Tiffany premium, I set to work combing through all your helpful recommendations instead.
The Diamond District
I’m lucky enough to live in NY and be a student with time on my hands, so I got my soon-to-be-fiancé to take a day off work and go on a tour of NY’s Diamond District.
Random Place
First stop on our diamond search was a diamond wholesaler that a colleague had recommended to him (I think it was called Coco Diamonds? Not 100% sure though). The gentleman who helped us, Francesco, had pre-selected some diamonds according to our budget and specification (we were looking for a 1.5ct round brilliant in the best color and quality we could afford). While Francesco was nice and didn’t rush us at all, I would not recommend him. Whenever we asked him pretty straightforward questions (“should we be concerned this extra thin girdle might chip in the future?,” “shouldn’t we prioritize finding an XXX stone if our objective is the most sparkle/brilliance?, ”is this stone H&A?“) he would say we’re going into this “too deep” and that some people think about those things but he doesn’t and 99% of his clients just pick a stone without “looking at it deeply.” We thanked him and went off to our next appointment.
SK
After seeing how Steven Kirsch is held in such high regard on Pricescope we decided to go see him too. Via email we gave him the same specs (1.5 cts, round, best color and clarity we could afford) and he said he’d have some stones for us to look at. When we arrived Steven had just one stone that fit those specs for us to look at, which he said he didn’t actually want to show us at all because he was certain we’d want this other stone instead. He then showed us this much bigger ungraded stone (I believe it was around 2.4ct) that he said he could sell us within our budget, and told us his vision for setting it to cover a few of the major inclusions (which still left inclusions clearly visible to our eyes with no loupe). He told us he believes bigger is better, so we should prioritize size over the better quality/ color 1.5ct stone. He said he would get the stone graded by EGL if we wanted it and we was pretty sure it would be an SI2 and I think a J. SK was personable and easy to talk to, but I felt we had such different visions and that he hadn’t listened to what we wanted very well, so we decided not to go ahead with him. If I had my own stone, a bigger stone in mind and was going for an intricate pave look I still might look him up in the future.
LM
Next stop, Leon Mege. We had been emailing with Perry but hadn’t actually planned on stopping in on that day, the idea just suddenly came to us when we realized SK was in the same building as LM. So Perry only had a few hours of notice that we were stopping by, and didn’t have time to fully prepare. But he still managed to get a couple stones within our desired specs and budget for us to look at (he was more respectful of our budget than any other person we met and didn’t show us anything that wasn’t completely within it). Perry was personable and guaranteed he would be able to find us the best diamonds at the best prices with some more time. He seemed very knowledgeable. At this point I’d already received a LM setting quote and was pretty set on having Leon do my setting unless it was much cheaper to get it hand forged to a similar standard elsewhere, so we left LM feeling pretty confident we would be coming back.
ERD
Final stop, our appointment at ERD. We had arranged this appointment in advance and Chris had fully prepared for it. He started by educating us about RB stones and what in his opinion were the important things to look for. His professionalism was unparalleled (clearly an expert) and he spent a lot of time with us on the stones. He had a number of stones for us to look at. Afterwards we found that several of these stones were slightly above our budget, but it was still a good to compare these to the stones within budget (I couldn’t tell the difference between them!). Only negative point was when it came to the settings—this part was a little rushed. Chris showed me 2 ERD solitaire settings (one 4 prong, one 6 prong) and quoted me that to get the setting hand-forged would be $1000 more (bringing it a little above the LM quote). Chris said in his opinion we shouldn’t go hand-forged as it’s just a simple solitaire. The problem was I wasn’t in love with any of the ERD solitaire settings, and I didn’t feel reassured they could make me a setting I would love.
Conclusion
We walked away feeling we would probably source a diamond through ERD and get the setting through LM. When we factored in the extra $100 plus the lab fee we would have to pay to get a diamond sourced from elsewhere set by LM we would have saved quite a bit by going with LM for both. Plus Perry was offering us the best price. I would still whole-heartedly recommend ERD to source your diamonds and to set your stone if you like an ERD design, it just didn't make sense for us.
The Diamond Specs
Ours is an H&A 1.51ct RB Canadian diamond (Birks inscription).
Color: H
Clarity: VS2 (only 1 feather on the bottom, imperceptible to the eye and to me with the loupe, will be covered by a prong)
Cut/ Polish/ Symmetry: XXX
Depth: 62.1%
Table: 55%
Crown Angle: 35%
Pavilion: 40.8%
Cutlet: None
Girdle: Medium (faceted)
HCA score: 1.6
Deciding on a Setting with LM
I wanted to go for a really simple solitaire with minimum metal and maximum revealing of the stone.
I fell in LOVE with Leon’s R4770:
https://www.artofplatinum.com/vault/tulip-solitaire-enagement-ring
Video can be seen here, but it’s mislabeled as another R number:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-f8qULpwuM
I discovered Mark Morrell’s beautiful designs after I decided to go with Leon, and found I really liked MM’s use of a raised shank, so I sent Leon some Pricescope images of MM rings and amended the work order a few days in to provide for a raised shank. So it will hopefully look just like the R4770 with the same head and rounded band, but with a MM petite sunburst style raised shank (as here: http://www.mwmjewelry.com/Petite_SunBurst_0.97ct._D-IF_sz5_/slides/Petite_SunBurst_0.97ct._D-IF_sz5_004.html)
As for thickness when my boyfriend spoke with Leon he emphasized we wanted to go 2mm or less, but the amended work order says the ring will be 2mm, so I couldn’t stop myself from emailing Perry and Rachel yesterday (don’t want to bother Leon!) to say please leave a note on my file to go under 2mm if possible, because I just love the 1.8mm rings I’ve seen on Pricescope. With a stone my size I think I need I should err on the thin side to make it pop!
I feel bad for being a nuisance by contacting them to make an amendment again. Originally we had planned a meeting with Leon to discuss our work order, but when we got there we learned because it’s a simple solitaire and a busy time we were just going to meet with Perry instead. It was a short, rushed appointment with Perry to finalize our payment for the stone and decide on our setting work order (30 min), so I didn’t really fully understand what we had agreed on for the setting. Only because my boyfriend insisted on meeting Leon did we get to see him. He was very friendly and informative but as they needed the room for the next client we only got to sit down with him for about 4 min.
I was left with a lot of questions afterwards and so as we learned more about different options I wanted to refine our work order (Leon’s very busy but my boyfriend was able to catch him on the phone twice and he was always friendly and helpful). We communicated to Leon we wanted the diamond to appear prominently and showed him the MM images of the shank I liked, and he advised that the diamond height should stay as low as possible and the only thing to change on the work order is to provide for a raised shank. Since we amended the work order last week this 2mm thickness thing is the only thing I’ve written about, and I have promised my boyfriend it’s the last thing I’ll bother them with (he barely let me send that email out!). Even though Leon has been nice to us whenever we’ve spoken to him, it’s kind of strange feeling like you can’t reach out to your jeweler freely because you’re afraid of being yelled at!
The Wait!
So now 5 weeks remain before we should receive my ring! I’m hoping it will be the R4770 head on the MM-like raised shank with the perfect band thickness. This waiting part is very daunting for a control-freak like me! Crossing my fingers it goes by quick. I’ll keep you posted!
The Wedding Band
I’m making myself hold out on this until I receive my e-ring, but I just love the Tiffany shared prong .27ct ring: http://www.tiffany.com/Shopping/Item.aspx?sku=GRP00005
I’ve reached out to Maytal Hannah, who has offered to make my ring for much cheaper than Tiffany’s $3600 price tag, and ID Jewlery, who can do it for even less. I'm awaiting a quote from Leon. As we've gone slightly above budget on my e-ring, I'd like to save as much as I can on my wedding band. I plan to go into ID when I have my e-ring so I can try on a few options and make sure the ring can sit flush with my e-ring (apparently the ID open basket setting sits a little higher than the closed basket setting). I am a little concerned after reading some reviews about loose stones in ID's shared prong rings.
Please let me know if you have any other suggestions for good quality open basket, half shared prong very low set bands!
I’m finally nearing the end of my engagement ring quest process, and I feel that I owe this website a huge debt of gratitude for getting me to this stage so I wanted to update you on my adventure.
A few weeks ago I honestly had no idea what I was looking for in an engagement ring-- every ring I’ve seen on this site is gorgeous (and doesn’t help narrow it down at all!). At first I thought I wanted a ring with side baguettes, and some of you left me helpful comments on how to go about achieving this setting with my budget, but a short trip to Tiffany helped me conclude a classic round solitaire is the one for me! Not wanting to pay the Tiffany premium, I set to work combing through all your helpful recommendations instead.
The Diamond District
I’m lucky enough to live in NY and be a student with time on my hands, so I got my soon-to-be-fiancé to take a day off work and go on a tour of NY’s Diamond District.
Random Place
First stop on our diamond search was a diamond wholesaler that a colleague had recommended to him (I think it was called Coco Diamonds? Not 100% sure though). The gentleman who helped us, Francesco, had pre-selected some diamonds according to our budget and specification (we were looking for a 1.5ct round brilliant in the best color and quality we could afford). While Francesco was nice and didn’t rush us at all, I would not recommend him. Whenever we asked him pretty straightforward questions (“should we be concerned this extra thin girdle might chip in the future?,” “shouldn’t we prioritize finding an XXX stone if our objective is the most sparkle/brilliance?, ”is this stone H&A?“) he would say we’re going into this “too deep” and that some people think about those things but he doesn’t and 99% of his clients just pick a stone without “looking at it deeply.” We thanked him and went off to our next appointment.
SK
After seeing how Steven Kirsch is held in such high regard on Pricescope we decided to go see him too. Via email we gave him the same specs (1.5 cts, round, best color and clarity we could afford) and he said he’d have some stones for us to look at. When we arrived Steven had just one stone that fit those specs for us to look at, which he said he didn’t actually want to show us at all because he was certain we’d want this other stone instead. He then showed us this much bigger ungraded stone (I believe it was around 2.4ct) that he said he could sell us within our budget, and told us his vision for setting it to cover a few of the major inclusions (which still left inclusions clearly visible to our eyes with no loupe). He told us he believes bigger is better, so we should prioritize size over the better quality/ color 1.5ct stone. He said he would get the stone graded by EGL if we wanted it and we was pretty sure it would be an SI2 and I think a J. SK was personable and easy to talk to, but I felt we had such different visions and that he hadn’t listened to what we wanted very well, so we decided not to go ahead with him. If I had my own stone, a bigger stone in mind and was going for an intricate pave look I still might look him up in the future.
LM
Next stop, Leon Mege. We had been emailing with Perry but hadn’t actually planned on stopping in on that day, the idea just suddenly came to us when we realized SK was in the same building as LM. So Perry only had a few hours of notice that we were stopping by, and didn’t have time to fully prepare. But he still managed to get a couple stones within our desired specs and budget for us to look at (he was more respectful of our budget than any other person we met and didn’t show us anything that wasn’t completely within it). Perry was personable and guaranteed he would be able to find us the best diamonds at the best prices with some more time. He seemed very knowledgeable. At this point I’d already received a LM setting quote and was pretty set on having Leon do my setting unless it was much cheaper to get it hand forged to a similar standard elsewhere, so we left LM feeling pretty confident we would be coming back.
ERD
Final stop, our appointment at ERD. We had arranged this appointment in advance and Chris had fully prepared for it. He started by educating us about RB stones and what in his opinion were the important things to look for. His professionalism was unparalleled (clearly an expert) and he spent a lot of time with us on the stones. He had a number of stones for us to look at. Afterwards we found that several of these stones were slightly above our budget, but it was still a good to compare these to the stones within budget (I couldn’t tell the difference between them!). Only negative point was when it came to the settings—this part was a little rushed. Chris showed me 2 ERD solitaire settings (one 4 prong, one 6 prong) and quoted me that to get the setting hand-forged would be $1000 more (bringing it a little above the LM quote). Chris said in his opinion we shouldn’t go hand-forged as it’s just a simple solitaire. The problem was I wasn’t in love with any of the ERD solitaire settings, and I didn’t feel reassured they could make me a setting I would love.
Conclusion
We walked away feeling we would probably source a diamond through ERD and get the setting through LM. When we factored in the extra $100 plus the lab fee we would have to pay to get a diamond sourced from elsewhere set by LM we would have saved quite a bit by going with LM for both. Plus Perry was offering us the best price. I would still whole-heartedly recommend ERD to source your diamonds and to set your stone if you like an ERD design, it just didn't make sense for us.
The Diamond Specs
Ours is an H&A 1.51ct RB Canadian diamond (Birks inscription).
Color: H
Clarity: VS2 (only 1 feather on the bottom, imperceptible to the eye and to me with the loupe, will be covered by a prong)
Cut/ Polish/ Symmetry: XXX
Depth: 62.1%
Table: 55%
Crown Angle: 35%
Pavilion: 40.8%
Cutlet: None
Girdle: Medium (faceted)
HCA score: 1.6
Deciding on a Setting with LM
I wanted to go for a really simple solitaire with minimum metal and maximum revealing of the stone.
I fell in LOVE with Leon’s R4770:
https://www.artofplatinum.com/vault/tulip-solitaire-enagement-ring
Video can be seen here, but it’s mislabeled as another R number:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-f8qULpwuM
I discovered Mark Morrell’s beautiful designs after I decided to go with Leon, and found I really liked MM’s use of a raised shank, so I sent Leon some Pricescope images of MM rings and amended the work order a few days in to provide for a raised shank. So it will hopefully look just like the R4770 with the same head and rounded band, but with a MM petite sunburst style raised shank (as here: http://www.mwmjewelry.com/Petite_SunBurst_0.97ct._D-IF_sz5_/slides/Petite_SunBurst_0.97ct._D-IF_sz5_004.html)
As for thickness when my boyfriend spoke with Leon he emphasized we wanted to go 2mm or less, but the amended work order says the ring will be 2mm, so I couldn’t stop myself from emailing Perry and Rachel yesterday (don’t want to bother Leon!) to say please leave a note on my file to go under 2mm if possible, because I just love the 1.8mm rings I’ve seen on Pricescope. With a stone my size I think I need I should err on the thin side to make it pop!
I feel bad for being a nuisance by contacting them to make an amendment again. Originally we had planned a meeting with Leon to discuss our work order, but when we got there we learned because it’s a simple solitaire and a busy time we were just going to meet with Perry instead. It was a short, rushed appointment with Perry to finalize our payment for the stone and decide on our setting work order (30 min), so I didn’t really fully understand what we had agreed on for the setting. Only because my boyfriend insisted on meeting Leon did we get to see him. He was very friendly and informative but as they needed the room for the next client we only got to sit down with him for about 4 min.
I was left with a lot of questions afterwards and so as we learned more about different options I wanted to refine our work order (Leon’s very busy but my boyfriend was able to catch him on the phone twice and he was always friendly and helpful). We communicated to Leon we wanted the diamond to appear prominently and showed him the MM images of the shank I liked, and he advised that the diamond height should stay as low as possible and the only thing to change on the work order is to provide for a raised shank. Since we amended the work order last week this 2mm thickness thing is the only thing I’ve written about, and I have promised my boyfriend it’s the last thing I’ll bother them with (he barely let me send that email out!). Even though Leon has been nice to us whenever we’ve spoken to him, it’s kind of strange feeling like you can’t reach out to your jeweler freely because you’re afraid of being yelled at!
The Wait!
So now 5 weeks remain before we should receive my ring! I’m hoping it will be the R4770 head on the MM-like raised shank with the perfect band thickness. This waiting part is very daunting for a control-freak like me! Crossing my fingers it goes by quick. I’ll keep you posted!
The Wedding Band
I’m making myself hold out on this until I receive my e-ring, but I just love the Tiffany shared prong .27ct ring: http://www.tiffany.com/Shopping/Item.aspx?sku=GRP00005
I’ve reached out to Maytal Hannah, who has offered to make my ring for much cheaper than Tiffany’s $3600 price tag, and ID Jewlery, who can do it for even less. I'm awaiting a quote from Leon. As we've gone slightly above budget on my e-ring, I'd like to save as much as I can on my wedding band. I plan to go into ID when I have my e-ring so I can try on a few options and make sure the ring can sit flush with my e-ring (apparently the ID open basket setting sits a little higher than the closed basket setting). I am a little concerned after reading some reviews about loose stones in ID's shared prong rings.
Please let me know if you have any other suggestions for good quality open basket, half shared prong very low set bands!
300x240.png)