- Joined
- Oct 11, 2011
- Messages
- 6,139
So this is my first post here and thus you guys don't know this, but the Pricescope forums were a HUGE help when my fiance and I were shopping for my engagement ring. I knew nothing about expensive jewelry going into this purchase, but lurking on PS for months gave me enough information to proceed.
I knew I wanted a sapphire center stone, and after having seen the icky sapphires on offer at the mall, I was ready to order online using some of the people who come highly recommended by people on this forum. My fiance was not into that because us picking my ring and stone out in person was very important to him. After going around and visiting just about every jeweler in the city, big and small, independent or chain, we ended up at Mariloff at the World Trade Center, which was the only place where the salespeople seemed to understand the phrase "sapphire center stone." I was initially going after fairly light and greyish sapphires, because I think those are gorgeous, but when they brought this one out I had to have it. I've contemplated getting it recut because there's some extinction (you'll see it in the pictures), but I don't know if that could be done without changing the surface size much. I've tried to include pictures with different lighting so you can see all the ways the color looks. Also, at the time I got it, I didn't pay attention to the prongs at all, but now (months and months later!), I wish I'd thought more about prongs early on so I could have had them made skinnier and not so chunky and bulbous. Overall, though, I am incredibly satisfied with it.
Anyway, on to what you care about:
Stats:
Cushion cut 2.06 ct sapphire, natural, untreated (I have LOTS more information on this from the GIA if I could only find where my fiance put it!)
Half moon sidestones, 1.57 ct total, G, VS2
0.72 ct total pave, G, VS2
Set in platinum 900
Ring size 4.5
Pictures!
This is the ring in its larval stage, the day we picked out the sapphire. The sample setting has a narrower band than the final setting.
The first picture I took of the completed ring! Indoors at night with fluorescent lighting and the flash.
Outdoor daytime lighting.
It pretty much matches the ocean.
Of all the settings we tried, the half-moons looked the best. A lot of times when viewing the ring straight on they kind of disappear, but this angle shows them off! The one thing about them is that they're not especially sparkly. The sapphire throws off a lot of electric blue, and the pave diamonds are constantly flashing different colors, but the half-moons don't do much of that. Is it that the half-moon cut in general doesn't lend itself to that? They look fiery under LED lighting, but that's about it.
Indoor, yellowy lighting.
Outdoors, late afternoon.
Outdoors, early evening.
Outdoors, early evening.
I knew I wanted a sapphire center stone, and after having seen the icky sapphires on offer at the mall, I was ready to order online using some of the people who come highly recommended by people on this forum. My fiance was not into that because us picking my ring and stone out in person was very important to him. After going around and visiting just about every jeweler in the city, big and small, independent or chain, we ended up at Mariloff at the World Trade Center, which was the only place where the salespeople seemed to understand the phrase "sapphire center stone." I was initially going after fairly light and greyish sapphires, because I think those are gorgeous, but when they brought this one out I had to have it. I've contemplated getting it recut because there's some extinction (you'll see it in the pictures), but I don't know if that could be done without changing the surface size much. I've tried to include pictures with different lighting so you can see all the ways the color looks. Also, at the time I got it, I didn't pay attention to the prongs at all, but now (months and months later!), I wish I'd thought more about prongs early on so I could have had them made skinnier and not so chunky and bulbous. Overall, though, I am incredibly satisfied with it.
Anyway, on to what you care about:
Stats:
Cushion cut 2.06 ct sapphire, natural, untreated (I have LOTS more information on this from the GIA if I could only find where my fiance put it!)
Half moon sidestones, 1.57 ct total, G, VS2
0.72 ct total pave, G, VS2
Set in platinum 900
Ring size 4.5
Pictures!
This is the ring in its larval stage, the day we picked out the sapphire. The sample setting has a narrower band than the final setting.
The first picture I took of the completed ring! Indoors at night with fluorescent lighting and the flash.
Outdoor daytime lighting.
It pretty much matches the ocean.
Of all the settings we tried, the half-moons looked the best. A lot of times when viewing the ring straight on they kind of disappear, but this angle shows them off! The one thing about them is that they're not especially sparkly. The sapphire throws off a lot of electric blue, and the pave diamonds are constantly flashing different colors, but the half-moons don't do much of that. Is it that the half-moon cut in general doesn't lend itself to that? They look fiery under LED lighting, but that's about it.
Indoor, yellowy lighting.
Outdoors, late afternoon.
Outdoors, early evening.
Outdoors, early evening.
I do think it would sit better if I could get it just a smidgen smaller, but I don't know how feasible it is to make it smaller without making it so small it would hurt to remove. The wedding band fits a bit better on the lower (skinnier!) part of my finger, and when I wear them as a set, the engagement ring seems to fit better. Or maybe that's all in my head - after all, I've only worn the wedding band a couple of times since we're not married yet! (You can see, though, in the pictures where I wear it further up on my finger, closer to my knuckle, that the ring is sitting straighter, versus sitting crooked every which way when it's down on the skinny part of my finger.) I discussed the sizing issue with my fiance when he proposed (or, well, later that night, not as he was down on one knee) and again when we took it back for a final check at the jewelry store, and we concluded we'd leave it as it is. Though if you have any suggestions on what to do about this problem without causing it to be unable to fit past my fat knuckles, I'm all ears! I'm clueless about it, as usually I wear rings with really wide bands and have thus never encountered this problem before.
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