Cehrabehra
Super_Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2006
- Messages
- 11,071
hahaha I''m still kinda chuckling to myself after yesterday.... I went to my aunt''s with my loupe and camera hoping to get some shots of my cousin''s oval and my grandma''s ring... well I didn''t take any pictures... first of all I found out the oval is a 1.5 and while it is a bit short/pudgy and totally gorgeous shape - it was sooooooooo dirty I couldn''t *believe* how dirty it was. I swear it was more dirty than my earrings!!!! Honestly, I didn''t want to get that close to it. It looked like it had a zest film all over it!! Her brother''s wife has a round, my guess 1.25 or so... and while it wasn''t the best cut thing in the world, it was *clean* enough and sparkled nicely
So a bit later I asked my aunt if I could see g''ma''s ring - hoping that I might find a couple nice old diamonds... well the ring was dirty but I *think* one is a pointed culet OEC and the other looks to be a transitional with a tiny culet. One is from about 1910 and the other from around 1940. It could be the OEC is actually a transitional and the transitional is an old style RB but I really couldn''t tell with the dirt and stuff. I could tell the cuts were different though - only one of them could I see LGF well but they were still very short. the older stone had a huge crown - I''d say like at LEAST 30% maybe 40%!!
So then came the best part - after talking to her about all of this she pulls out this little ring and hands it to me, and without saying anything says, "what can you tell me about this ring?" and I know immediately it''s got a very antique style setting and I tell her so... then I look at it and we''re talking TINY like 10-15 points at MOST and from the side it is almost 50% crown and the table is soooo tiny, but when I look down through the table the culet was way off to the side and the crown symmetry was really really really really bad. So I told her what I thought of it and that it looked hand cut and a hundred years old and then she tells me she got it from her grandmother (my great grand) for her 16th birthday and great grand got it for HER 16th birthday... so that was fun to see... it was tiny and essentially worthless, but seeing that rough old cut just melted me!! I *definitely* have a thing for old cuts!! (more on that later) I was so disappointed that neither stone had a large culet
So after talking some more about "symmetry" I decide to confide in her about my stone (which I didn''t even tell anyone else about) and showed it to her and she says immediately oh wow that looks almost as big as A''s stone! (the 1.5 carat oval) How big is it? (oy - confronted by that question already yikes!!!) to which I said almost 3. (and after immediately thought ugh why did I say that??? LOL!!!) and she said how much did he pay for it and I said more than he wanted to LOL To which she said, well let''s see.... a thousand a carat and three carats is about 3,000 dollars! I said, well, it was a little more than that... her eyes bugged out and I changed the subject... I didn''t want to give her any gossip ammunition even though I told her not to say anything about it yet... so she''s holding the ring and it''s sparkling nicely and doing its job and she says oh well I wouldn''t want just one big ring like this, I''d MUCH rather have a whole bunch of little diamonds sparkling on every finger! hehehe and I could see her wheels going "1,000 dollars a carat I could have TWENTY stones for your one!" hahaha okay so that part made me really chuckle.
The BEST part of the whole WEEK though was this: I was at my jewelers (nothing new to report ::grumblesigh
showing my best friend the wax and was talking to another jeweler that works there and telling him my love for old stones and he says, "This here is an old mine cut" so I ask if I can loupe it and he agrees.... it was VERY very dirty and I did have to correct him that it was an old european cut (round in a square man-halo type flush set ring thing) but OMG it was sooooo gorgeous!!!! A 2 carat OEC in my paws!!! I asked him to clean it for me and he WOULDN''T!!!! ::sob:: he just kept saying, nah it doesn''t last, I don''t care, I just like it because it''s a family ring blah blah blah and I''m thinking dude, I''ll *pay* you to clean your ring and let me look at it!!!!!! lol
So, since I now have a loupe I''ve been looking at my stone really close and quite a bit and have taken note of the kozibe effect in my stone and a few other things I didn''t know about analyzing the cut etc. But, and I know this is gonna sound silly, I''m really bummed I cannot find the inclusions in my stone with a loupe. I have been looking for days and I cleaned the hell out of it today to the point there wasn''t a speck of anything or lint anywhere and I had the inclusion plot there and couldn''t find ANYTHING - nothing. Now, I had a GIA grader tell me that this was a *very* high VS2 but I am disappointed that I don''t have inclusions I can see at all just for identification purposes. So then I started getting paranoid about the jeweler having it for SIX WEEKS and maybe they switched it, but in all seriousness, how could they have a stone made *exactly* like mine? I know my facets and these are my facets and by the time they contracted an identical slightly yellow CZ they''d not have made much in the process LOL So on the one hand I wish I could see some of the flaws to look at them and have something to inspect and visually play with - I on the other hand feel even *more* tickled that my stone is soooooooo clear Which it does really need to be with this cut. It hides nothing well.
Well, I guess that''s it... lots of ramble here so I apologize for that... had lots of pent up diamond thoughts to get out!! lol Hope everyone had a great holiday!!
Oh, one more thing... about my jeweler... I guess I really don''t mind being patient where patience is due. I don''t mind this taking a long time, in general. What DOES bother me is when I hear, "Oh xyz will be done on SATURDAY or whenever and it isn''t. When I''m told 2 more days 1 more day 4 more days and suddenly two weeks have gone by and NOTHING has changed. If they just said "I''m busy for two weeks" I would suck it up. And the reason is this (and tell me if I''m insane): If they tell when something will be done and it isn''t - it really makes me think, are they just giving me a line about making sure this or that or the other is going to be followed through on - like how well it will be set etc. I feel like my trust takes a beating every time I''m told something and it doesn''t happen. Now, in their defence, or rather in her defence, she looks like crap lately
she has been so sick and I can see it on her face and she looks soooo bad.... and I know she really wants to do this but I don''t know if she can and I keep trying to give her an out and she insists she really wants to do this... and I hate to yank it from her but good grief!! My husband tells me to be patient but I''m not sure how patient I should be. I haven''t ordered my melee yet because if I decide to go elsewhere I would likely source it then. Ugh... okay I''m done with that for tonight. We''ll see how the next week pans out.
So a bit later I asked my aunt if I could see g''ma''s ring - hoping that I might find a couple nice old diamonds... well the ring was dirty but I *think* one is a pointed culet OEC and the other looks to be a transitional with a tiny culet. One is from about 1910 and the other from around 1940. It could be the OEC is actually a transitional and the transitional is an old style RB but I really couldn''t tell with the dirt and stuff. I could tell the cuts were different though - only one of them could I see LGF well but they were still very short. the older stone had a huge crown - I''d say like at LEAST 30% maybe 40%!!
So then came the best part - after talking to her about all of this she pulls out this little ring and hands it to me, and without saying anything says, "what can you tell me about this ring?" and I know immediately it''s got a very antique style setting and I tell her so... then I look at it and we''re talking TINY like 10-15 points at MOST and from the side it is almost 50% crown and the table is soooo tiny, but when I look down through the table the culet was way off to the side and the crown symmetry was really really really really bad. So I told her what I thought of it and that it looked hand cut and a hundred years old and then she tells me she got it from her grandmother (my great grand) for her 16th birthday and great grand got it for HER 16th birthday... so that was fun to see... it was tiny and essentially worthless, but seeing that rough old cut just melted me!! I *definitely* have a thing for old cuts!! (more on that later) I was so disappointed that neither stone had a large culet
So after talking some more about "symmetry" I decide to confide in her about my stone (which I didn''t even tell anyone else about) and showed it to her and she says immediately oh wow that looks almost as big as A''s stone! (the 1.5 carat oval) How big is it? (oy - confronted by that question already yikes!!!) to which I said almost 3. (and after immediately thought ugh why did I say that??? LOL!!!) and she said how much did he pay for it and I said more than he wanted to LOL To which she said, well let''s see.... a thousand a carat and three carats is about 3,000 dollars! I said, well, it was a little more than that... her eyes bugged out and I changed the subject... I didn''t want to give her any gossip ammunition even though I told her not to say anything about it yet... so she''s holding the ring and it''s sparkling nicely and doing its job and she says oh well I wouldn''t want just one big ring like this, I''d MUCH rather have a whole bunch of little diamonds sparkling on every finger! hehehe and I could see her wheels going "1,000 dollars a carat I could have TWENTY stones for your one!" hahaha okay so that part made me really chuckle.
The BEST part of the whole WEEK though was this: I was at my jewelers (nothing new to report ::grumblesigh
So, since I now have a loupe I''ve been looking at my stone really close and quite a bit and have taken note of the kozibe effect in my stone and a few other things I didn''t know about analyzing the cut etc. But, and I know this is gonna sound silly, I''m really bummed I cannot find the inclusions in my stone with a loupe. I have been looking for days and I cleaned the hell out of it today to the point there wasn''t a speck of anything or lint anywhere and I had the inclusion plot there and couldn''t find ANYTHING - nothing. Now, I had a GIA grader tell me that this was a *very* high VS2 but I am disappointed that I don''t have inclusions I can see at all just for identification purposes. So then I started getting paranoid about the jeweler having it for SIX WEEKS and maybe they switched it, but in all seriousness, how could they have a stone made *exactly* like mine? I know my facets and these are my facets and by the time they contracted an identical slightly yellow CZ they''d not have made much in the process LOL So on the one hand I wish I could see some of the flaws to look at them and have something to inspect and visually play with - I on the other hand feel even *more* tickled that my stone is soooooooo clear Which it does really need to be with this cut. It hides nothing well.
Well, I guess that''s it... lots of ramble here so I apologize for that... had lots of pent up diamond thoughts to get out!! lol Hope everyone had a great holiday!!
Oh, one more thing... about my jeweler... I guess I really don''t mind being patient where patience is due. I don''t mind this taking a long time, in general. What DOES bother me is when I hear, "Oh xyz will be done on SATURDAY or whenever and it isn''t. When I''m told 2 more days 1 more day 4 more days and suddenly two weeks have gone by and NOTHING has changed. If they just said "I''m busy for two weeks" I would suck it up. And the reason is this (and tell me if I''m insane): If they tell when something will be done and it isn''t - it really makes me think, are they just giving me a line about making sure this or that or the other is going to be followed through on - like how well it will be set etc. I feel like my trust takes a beating every time I''m told something and it doesn''t happen. Now, in their defence, or rather in her defence, she looks like crap lately