Find your diamond
Find your jewelry
shape
carat
color
clarity

So much information to take in. Help with a Marquise Ring.

Status
Not open for further replies. Please create a new topic or request for this thread to be opened.
M

Marquise Dan

Rough_Rock
Joined
Sep 30, 2008
Messages
2
Hello all,

Another new poster here and one with absolutely no credentials in jewellery at all, so I''m crying out for some help!

I''m planning on taking the plunge soon and proposing - which will actually be for the second time. First engagement ended badly and, ironically, I didn''t put that much research in to buying the ring, I just went to a large high street retailer here in the UK and regretted it as I seemed to get very little for my money.

This time, I''m pouring a great deal of time in to finding the perfect ring, but there is so much generic information out there I need the chance to pick the brains of some people in the know.

I''m after a marquise cut diamond set with a platinum band. Lady in question is quite petite - but I don''t seem able to find reliable pictures of different size marquise diamonds in settings. Budget for the ring is £1500 - £1750 (what''s that, around the $3000 dollar mark). I''ve spent a long time on the Blue Nile website reading up on the 4Cs and browsing their collection of diamonds - for the money I''m looking at it seems that I can get anything from a 0.5c diamond to a 0.8c. But, this doesn''t mean much too me as as I''ve said, comparing photographs of different size marquise stones is hard.

My partner loves the Marquise stone and also loves twisted designs, finding these together seems to also be difficult!

My main questions involve colour and clarity - as I think I''ve realised that going for the best possible cut is a given. Am I (or is she) going to notice the difference between a D and, say, a G colour diamond? Do I need to be too concerned about going for an SI1 or a VS2? I''ve been out in the jewellery quarter in Birmingham UK and have viewed different diamonds, and with me being an untrained philistine I have to say that I can''t. I keep hearing this expression ''eye clean''- well maybe I have bad eyes, but there is so much information out there that I need help!

I believe that there are vendors on here - who should I be looking at and talking to? I''m not against the idea of importing from the States - I''ve done it many times before with other items. If anyone wants to post pictures of their wares (assuming that''s allowed here...) I''d love to see them.

Please excuse my waffle - any help anyone can give me will be greatly appreciated.

Dan
 
Hi Dan and welcome!

With the current exchange rate, you would be looking at around 3k USD, although there would be duties payable should you import from the States, I can't recall what they are now, but Maisie or Pan might pop in and advise.

Marquise are a tricky shape in as much that they can vary in shape, and they really need to be seen to be evaluated. What I would suggest you do initially, is to contact Dr Indira Marchant at www.bestdiamonds.co.uk She also posts here. She is an expert and a lovely lady who is passionate about diamonds and that all important component - cut. If the cut quality isn't good then a diamond won't sparkle. So really look at as many marquise as you can to get a feel for what you like shapewise, long and thin, medium or short and fat! Also many marquise can show what is called the bow tie effect. This can be seen as a dark area across the middle of the diamond, rather like a bow tie in appearance! You can't always avoid this entirely as many elongated diamonds can show this, but sometimes you can minimise it.

See this useful link for shape tips and bow tie info - http://www.goodoldgold.com/ShapeTutorials/ShapeTips1/

If you decide to buy online from the States, then stick with vendors who have in house inventory diamonds that have the cut analysis done such as ASET and Idealscope images which are very useful for measuring light return and leakage respectively and photos of the diamonds ( ASET is preferred for fancy shapes). Otherwise you can't buy from a brief description and a couple of numbers such as depth and table, this is really buying blind and you have no way of knowing what you will get when you open the box!

The subject of eyeclean....That can be very subjective so rather than explaining it in this post, I will direct you to this excellent thread which will help concerning eyeclean definitions .

Colour and clarity, if the cut is good then any diamond will look great, so a reliably graded ( GIA/ HRD) G and SI clarity if verified eyeclean could be a good choice. These vendors have an excellent rep here should you decide you want to go online Stateside -

www.whiteflash.com

www.goodoldgold.com

www.winkjones.com

www.jamesallen.com

Lastly, here is a chart you can use as a guide to marquise proportions, but please use it as a guide only, not a rule, otherwise you could miss out on some beautiful diamonds which could make you and your GF very happy!

http://diamonds.pricescope.com/fnc3.asp

I hope this helps!
 
Hi Lorelei,

Thanks for all that info - much more to chew over.
 
James Allen has the most pictures. It can be overwhelming, though.

Blue Nile is no good for this.
 
Date: 9/30/2008 4:34:35 PM
Author: JulieN
James Allen has the most pictures. It can be overwhelming, though.

Blue Nile is no good for this.
Click to expand...
How do you mean? I have generally noticed they have the one on in house diamonds, but so do the other vendors such as the ones above.
 
You mentioned Platinum. We should warn you that with a budget of aprox. $3000, a platinum setting will eat up around $1500 of the budget.
 
Not really, if he goes with the basic tiffany style solitaire, that''s only usd 600.
 
Status
Not open for further replies. Please create a new topic or request for this thread to be opened.
GET 3 FREE HCA RESULTS JOIN THE FORUM. ASK FOR HELP
Jewelry Blog
PriceScope-Concierge-Ad
Find prime cuts.
Top