Shallow stones

[Daniela]

Hi, everybody. I''m new here, so please be patient with my questions. I have done a thorough search on the topic of shallower stones with the right combination of crown and pavillion angles. I understand that these stones can be quite lovely, and that they look larger than an equivalent H&A cut stone.

However, after reading many of the threads on this topic, I still have some questions.

Is it possible for a shallower stone to have three "Very highs" on the BScope, or is this a privilege reserved for ideal cut diamonds? What about how high they can perform on the Isee2?

I guess what I''m asking is if the best of the shallower stones have the potential to perform like the best of the Hearts and Arrows stones.

I am particularly interested in knowing how they perform with regards to COLOURED light return. I just love those little rainbows... But the idea of having a larger looking rock is tempting.

I know that there are a few people out there who are passionate about this kind of thing, so I am interested in hearing everyone''s thoughts.

 

[robbe]

hi daniela,


those 'little rainbows' are the result of 'dispertion', that is, white light escaping from the crown divided into the colors of the spectrum.


the shallower a diamond is cut, the less crown height there is and consequently the less dispertion...


you either go for a shallow stone with less dispertion but usually more brilliance (= white light tru table) or


you choose a slightly more 'build-up' stone with more little rainbows ( i like how you put it "little rainbows", very cute)


good luck, robbe

 

[Daniela]

Thanks for correcting me, robbe, and thanks for your insight. If I can't get as many little rainbows in a shallower stone, then maybe I'm an ideal kind of girl.

 

[Mara]

How I see 'fire' in the stone (e.g. FIC or Ideal will have it) is that when you look into the stone, it reflects back white light but really more color rainbows..inside the stone.




I have a shallow brilliant cut stone and it does not return alot of rainbows in the stone, unless under certain lighting (e.g. track lighting or really really fluorescent lighting like at the gym). At that point I am mesmerized by the stone because I rarely see those rainbows inside. My stone mostly reflects white colored light back to me, e.g. sparkles of clear and black (scint) with little tiny bluish and pink rainbows, but not the explosions of fire I have seen in some other stones.




I want to be clear though that when you talk about rainbows, you are not talking about the rainbow sparkles the stone throws on ceilings, hands, etc *outside* the stone..all stones will do that. Mine does that all the time, I get hundreds of little rainbows on the car ceiling, on my pants, face, whatever. But internal rainbows is how I view the fire aspect that my stone partially lacks.




If you aren't sure what you like...stick with an 'ideal' or a TIC--they will have a great balance of both white light and fire.

 

[Daniela]

I just tried to post a reply, but it disappeared when I attempted to insert a smiley face. I guess I'm too new to play with graphics.

Anyway, thank you Mara for responding regarding your own personal stone and about what goes on inside of it. I was going to post two ideal stones off of the GOG site that I find interesting--one is a G SI-1 and the other an H VS-2. The funny thing is that the SI one sold within the past hour. Inventory sure moves quickly around here.

Well, since we're not buying until Novemeber and the question would have been hypothetical anyway, I'll post them for commments (It's that clarity vs. colour debate once again).

http://www.goodoldgold.com/1_08ct_g_si1_h%26a.htm (sold!!!)

http://www.goodoldgold.com/1_00ct_h_vs2__h%26a.htm

If you had to choose between the two, what would you do?

 

[Mara]

Actually inventory does not necessarily move that quickly--alot of stones hang out on the sites for a few months or at least a few weeks..depending on what is going on in the market. I think right now people are ramping up for the holiday season (biggest proposal season in conjunction with V-Day), so maybe things will start moving more quickly, but a few stones I have been eyeballing on a few sites for the last month are still there...so maybe it just depends on what people are looking at!

That said--I like the H VS stone better. You are really splitting hairs here IMO..both stones are excellent. I like the H better because the IdealScope image looks a little better. They are taken with different lighting sources and so that is why the reds and blacks don't match up (hard to compare!), but it seems like the H stone has a little bit better light return, a better and brighter table area etc. (again splitting hairs!) The Bcopes on both look just lovely, but because I was leaning more towards the H, I like the Bscope on the H better anyway. The H is also cheaper, and you will still have an amazingly white stone AND it will be VS...which I am partial to unless you find an exceptional SI1 stone that saves you $$ or lets you go bigger.




For your budget, you can afford something like these stones or you can go bigger on the ctw (my preference) and get something like a 1.15 G SI1 stone of the same exceptional cut quality. That would be my choice..dropping the other c's a bit to get a bigger stone...but you may not agree.

Welcome to the forum and get ready for a fun ride. If you are not buying til November, you have plenty of time to become a sponge and believe me..its easy to get addicted!




Also I realized that one of your original questions was not really answered. Shallower type stones will not be H&A stones. They will not have a cut that comes even close. They will not score as well on the Bscope for things like Fire (and maybe Scint?), and they will not have great IdealScope images...there will be some table and edge leakage most likely. Can you see the difference in real life? Yes I think so. I adore my shallow stone on a daily basis, but put it against something like a branded H&A for hard-core eyeball comparison, and I can see a real difference in how the fire sparkle and the symmetry. It's not that my stone looks unattractive next to a H&A type, but there is a visual difference--though one may find mine appealing over the other--it really is a visual preference. Do you compare stones against each other daily? No...but it's really your preference as to what you want to get and what you want to see.

Also what about these two (just surfed around GOG):






http://www.goodoldgold.com/1_19ct_g_si1.htm


$6400/$6500




http://www.goodoldgold.com/1_10ct_g_si1__h%26a.htm


$6300/$6400




Both are exceptional as well and much larger!

(Not sure what your budget is though!)




Oh also found these




http://www.whiteflash.com/diamonds/diamond_Details.aspx?itemcode=AGS-4259204


1.13 F SI1 ACA H&A $5600




Also GOG has a brokered stone (you'd have to call to talk to Jonathan about this one)


1.15 H SI1 H&A HCA score 1.6 EX for $5600

 

[Daniela]

Mara, first let me say that I appreciate all of your comments. You mentioned things that I hadn't even thought of. I guess it is true that I'm splitting hairs. I always had this negative idea of H coloured stones, but I should just get over it since everyone on the forum keeps saying that a well-cut stone faces up white, white, white.

I hear what you're saying about carat weight. This might sound a little silly, but upon further consideration, I'm not even sure how much over a carat we want to go as far as visual size goes. See, in our circle, one carat is pretty big. Note that we live in Canada, where it costs more to buy diamonds due to all of the taxes and such, plus the fact that the dollar is behind the US dollar. The effect of all of this is that I've never personally met anyone with larger than a carat because diamonds cost Canadians more than you might think.

Not that I wouldn't like a larger stone, personally. But every once in a while I guess I wonder what people would think, if they saw a 23 year old grad student wearing something really huge.

Then again, I'm always sort of torn on the issue, since I love the idea of owning a really nice sized stone!

I hear that it Texas they like to wear really big diamonds. I wonder if that's true? It's funny that diamond size is, to a certain extent, cultural.

 

[Mara]

I am of the firm mind that one should do what they please....esp if it includes wearing larger diamonds

I understand your fears about the 1c+ stones...but really I think you should get what you want. I don't think the difference between a 1c and a 1.15c or similar is THAT glaring..it's not as though you are talking about a 1c stone vs a 2c stone..then there'd be a jaw-dropping difference. In the end it is whatever makes you feel most comfortable...but diamond shrinkage does set in quickly

It's a mental thing.




It does depend on area too. In Texas they do wear larger diamonds (like hair?). Here in the Bayarea, I don't know many people with small stones...at least 1c seems to be the norm, and easily around 2c for an average. So while mine seems kind of big (looks like 1.35c since it's shallow), it pales in comparison to some of the ones I see. But alot of people have strange size perceptions of stones, so they think mine looks like a 1.5c..or even a 2c if they dont' really know anything about stones. Some people think it's a 1c. Very variable.

 

[Daniela]

I have to confess that I have trouble even imagining a place where 2 carats is the norm. Maybe I need to take a trip south in order to experience other diamond size cultures? I once had a professor who had the largest ring I had ever seen on a real human being. I spent four years trying to decide whether or not the darn thing was real or some sort of simulant. It was mesmorizing. To this day I regret not asking her about her ring.

I'm going to throw a new diamond into the mix just for discussion's sake:

http://www.niceice.com/certcopies/gia12485230/index.htm

This one is a G VS-2 from niceice. Do you think that I should get hung up on the fact that they don't use Isee2 or BScope results? Are there other ways of figuring out whether or not this stone is a looker?

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

If you go for a stone that looks like the shallow stone it will have a bigger spread.
But this will only work with an ideal-scope.

Not sure why the NiceIce stone is in the mix though - it is not particularly well spread?

 

[Daniela]

You're right, Cut Nut--the niceice stone is not one of the spreadier stones. The discussion just sort of evolved towards ideal cut stones, so I started looking at some of them, too. But back to the original question now: Do you personally have any thoughts on whether or not the spreadier stones can potentially throw off the little rainbows that I like so well?

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Without wanting to disagree with Robbe, in fact we often see shallow stones that have very good fire because they have more dark areas. Fire always comes off a darrker part - the really bright areas on a stone will alsways be white.

I am well known for preferring proportions like P40.5 and C33.5.
you get 3.5% more diamond for your money too

 

[Daniela]

Thank you for your input, Cut Nut. It's really easy to find ideal cut diamond dealers, but I have had more trouble finding people who deal in well-cut spreadier stones that look really great. Do you have any recommendations?

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Come visit me in Oz.
Good weather from now on

No - just do your searches with depth 56-60% and table 56 to 60%
Avoid the 60:60's and the 56:56's

 

[Richard Sherwood]

If you're looking for "fire" (dispersed spectral colors) I would avoid the shallower, large tabled stones and go for the ideal cut or Garry's "brilliant ideal cut", which you can read about in the tutorial above.

Basically smaller tabled, higher crown stones with crown and pavilion angles which compliment each other.

Old European Cuts also have a lot of "fire".

 

[Daniela]

Thanks for the advice, Richard, and forgive me if I sound silly when I ask: Where do I find the aforementioned tutorial on "Brilliant ideal cut"? I'm a bit confused about just what that is, and what the difference is between Brilliant ideal cut, and hearts and arrows ideal, etc. Please show me the way!

 

[Mara]

Daniela--Read the Pricescope tutorial, it also has info in there on Garry's HCA classifications. It's a little confusing and you will probably have to continue to read around and learn more before you really get it...it took me a good few weeks to learn my way around all the classifications and jargon--looking at stones in real life helps too.




Basically FIC's are Fiery Ideal Cuts which will show more fire in the stone (e.g. smaller table, larger pavilion), BIC's are Brilliant Ideal Cuts...somewhat like mine...more white in the stone than fire (e.g. larger table, sometimes shallower depth, shallower crown), or TIC are Tolowsky Ideal Cuts which are going to be most of the 'ideal' cuts you find around...a good balance of FIC and BIC.

Rich--dont you mean she should go for the FIC instead of the BIC as you posted if she wants more fire?