should I buyBLUE FLUORESCENT diamond or not for engagement?

[coolmanfever]

Hello All,

first timer here. Found this forum when shopping for diamond on line for engagement ring. I have looking around blue nile and james allen online. There is a option to buy BLUE FLUORESCENT on both site range from none to very strong. What kind of fluorescent do most people buy for engagement ring if any? Any advices are welcome. Thank you.

 

[oldminer]

Re: should I buyBLUE FLUORESCENT diamond or not for engageme

You certain can buy a diamond with UV fluorescence, but you need to be aware that depending on the strength, color and possible visibility of the fluorescence there may be an effect on value. This may reflect in the asking price, generally being somewhat lower, and rarely, but occasionally higher.

You need to look at diamonds with an without varying amounts of UV effect to know what fluorescence does. Any fluorescence of medium strength or more does have some effect on value, but may not show up in the asking price. How can a consumer know this? They really can't. It is inconsistent and many other factors determine asking and selling prices often much more than just any fluorescence present.

Don't buy a strong to intense fluorescent one just to be "different" without knowing why and understanding the consequences. Don't buy one only with none or negligible and needlessly eliminate those with slight, faint or medium. Learn what the effect does and what it can do to price, value and later resale value. There is no simple approach beyond total avoidance, but doing so does eliminate many, many diamonds for little reason.

 

[tyty333]

Re: should I buyBLUE FLUORESCENT diamond or not for engageme

Dont pick anything on that option. Pick stones that are well cut. Any stone that end up having Strong Fluorescence need to be
check by the vendor to make sure it does not adversely affect the stone...rare but does happen.

If you dont want to have to worry about it then you can select all of them except Strong.

 

[Diamond_Hawk]

Re: should I buyBLUE FLUORESCENT diamond or not for engageme

Hello coolman,

Oldminer has given you great advice - this is a topic of much debate here on PS as well as among professionals and consumers. Ultimately the preference for or against fluorescence must by your own. You can think of it as neither inherently "good" nor "bad" it is, like color and clarity, just a factor to be considered.

Make certain any company you deal with (particularly online) will have the diamond inspected prior to your finalized purchase (and/or has a great return policy) because fluorescence on the 'stronger' side of the scale can change the diamond's appearance (not always, but sometimes) to be milky or hazy and you will want to be assured by a gemologist before your purchase that this is not the case for your selected diamond.

 

[WinkHPD]

Re: should I buyBLUE FLUORESCENT diamond or not for engageme

I am well known as a lover of fluorescence on this forum. As a vendor I have offered many stones over the years that had it.

In fact, when I joined the trade back in the early 70's, there was a five to ten percent premium for diamonds with beneficial fluorescence. This changed during the dramatic price increases in the late 70's brought about by the diamond investment craze during which millions of silly people were scammed out of billions of dollars by so called diamond investments.

Since the newly hired and quickly trained sales associates of these companies that targeted the innocent and tricked the ignorant into buying diamonds they had no business buying, the companies badmouthed the beauty of fluorescence rather then taking the time and effort it would take to train their sales associates and also for the fact that to know the good from the bad, they would actually have to inspect the poorly cut junk they were selling as investments. For whatever reason, this prejudice has survived the investment craze.

At one point, I believe in late 1979 or sometime in 1980, I was hired by a local doctor to go to Arizona and inspect a parcel of fluorescence free diamonds that he had partially paid for before the Feds raided the seller, DeBeers Consolidated Mines, Inc (not LTD as the real DeBeers). He still owed over $20k on the parcel of diamonds that were all to be 1 carat and above and D-E-F, VVS to VS1. (Might have been as low as G - VS2, it has been a long time and my memory is old and needing an upgrade.)

I had with me my color master set of diamonds, and my microscope, along with a micrometer. Of the twelve rocks I examined, only one was both the stated color and clarity, and it had a 70% plus table and should have weighed about 0.65 cts had it been cut correctly according to my calculations. Mind you this was about two decades before H&A cutting would come to my attention in the mid nineties, so properly then was way below what is properly now.

It was a very stressful day, leaving Boise early in the morning in the doctor's private two engine Cessna and returning late that evening. The representative of DeBeers Consolidated Mines, Inc fought with me over every decision I made and attempted to bully me into accepting the ridiculous grades that DCM. Inc., had assigned these unworthy rocks through their pet grading laboratories, all long extinct. (At one time I had a whole file drawer full of bogus reports garnered from the many people who came to me for help with the gems that they or their ancestors had bought. My associates and friends, Antoinette Matlins and Cap Beasley were also deeply involved in trying to help defrauded people, I am sad to say that the number of people helped was extremely low, the bad guys mostly just declared bankruptcy and faded away. To this day, many of the "gems" that people purchased are still worth less at wholesale than was originally paid for them.) The amount that the doctor still owed was less than what I appraised the parcel of diamonds for.

When we finally left DCM, Inc., the doctor offered to take me to dinner, but I was too upset to eat.

Some months later I was approached by the Federal Prosecutor to be an expert witness in the trial of the two leaders of DCM, Inc., since I was the only gemologist who had actually inspected their garbage inside their own offices, so they could not claim switching or poor chain of custody. I was to leave with the Doctor on a Wednesday morning and testify on Friday, but I received a call on Tuesday telling me that I would not testify until Monday. That next morning the Doctor and all aboard were killed when the plane crashed within 100 miles of takeoff.

I immediately called the Federal Aviation Agency and expressed my fears of sabotage and called the prosecutor in Arizona who told me I watched too much TV and asked if I was flaking on him. I rather rudely told him to shove it, that I had already made reservations under another name and arranged a different hotel than the one he had ready for me. I arrived on Sunday, slept poorly and ended up not testifying until Tuesday, but charged the government for my time on Monday anyway.

It turned out that the prosecutor was right, it was not sabotage, but the backup vacuum pump failed because there was not light letting the pilot know when the main vacuum pump failed. All of the families of those on board made millions from the law suit, but I was very happy not making my lovely wife a millionaire that day! (Without the vacuum pump, there was no way to maintain the artificial horizon in the soup and the plane entered an ever steepening spiral and ripped the wings off prior to impact. When I was a private pilot and undergoing instrument training under a hood and with the artificial horizon covered over, I was instructed to keep the plane level. Always, after months of training, I was always not level and definitely not straight after only a few minutes.)

Oh, the bad guys. One was convicted and one was not, because one of the jurors liked his eyes and just did not believe he could really have known what was happening. Sigh.

I accepted only a few more court cases, but never had to actually appear in court again as the attorneys either stipulated to my findings or settled prior to the cases going to trial. (The stipulation came because the other appraiser and I were within 10% of each other on value, and neither attorney was willing to pay our fees to fight over so little, especially when the claimant appraiser was higher than I was, who was the dependant appraiser. There were fourteen or fifteen pages of appraisals on the pieces stolen and although we did not agree exactly on any of the pieces our net was within ten percent of one another. I had been able to get ahold of the estate of the creator of the most important stolen item and thus ended up the higher of the two appraisers.)

I no longer do court work or appraisals on things I did not sell, as there are many much more qualified appraisers who enjoy the work and do not end up sick for days after their day in court.

And, OH CRUNCH, the old man is reminiscing again. Sorry.

What I started out to say is this.

Although I personally love fluorescence, it is increasing negative to the pricing of a diamond, and for privates it is MUCH MORE DIFFICULT to resell your diamond should it ever be necessary. For this reason, I no longer council clients to buy fluorescent diamonds with their eyes, but council them to know of the difficulty involved in resale. If knowing this, they still want to fight for a discount from the seller and then complete the purchase, then I am comfortable knowing I have given them the best advice I can.

Wink

 

[Rockdiamond]

Re: should I buyBLUE FLUORESCENT diamond or not for engageme

Coolmanfever – What color is the diamond you're considering buying?
For me, that makes a real difference. I also love florescence diamonds – but the body color makes a big difference and how I buy them hello

 

[coolmanfever]

Re: should I buyBLUE FLUORESCENT diamond or not for engageme

thanks for all the response. I am looking for a colorless diamond. Seems like it's safer to go with non fluorescent if I go with colorless diamond.

 

[whitewave]

Re: should I buyBLUE FLUORESCENT diamond or not for engageme

Wink, that made some interesting reading with my morning coffee!

 

[Rockdiamond]

Re: should I buyBLUE FLUORESCENT diamond or not for engageme

thanks for all the response. I am looking for a colorless diamond. Seems like it's safer to go with non fluorescent if I go with colorless diamond.

It depends on where and how you're buying coolman

If you're buying in person, I'd absolutely include fluorescent diamonds, if they happen to be offered to you.
If the stone is a very high color- G or better- I always look for stones that should see at a nice discount over inert ( non fl) stones.
Resale value is completely not an issue for consumers IMO.
Any consumer, selling any diamond is at a big disadvantage.
The lower price at purchase is where you can find good value in a high color MB/SB stone.....especially if you can look at it personally.
I know that there's been many cases in my experience that I favored an MB/SB stone over a similar inert stone based solely on appearance. That the stone cost less is a huge plus.