Thinking of upgrading my wife's diamond for 20th

[Titan7]

So 20 years ago I was looking. For an ideal cut diamond which was pretty difficult without the info on the net, AGS, HCA, etc. all that was out there was L. Kaplan Diamonds, which I could not find. It would have been soooo much easier today, with all the online help. My jeweler got in a nice stone that was really on fire and said it was and ideal cut. I had some concerns about symmetry and polish and the GIA report left a lot of the critical info out, at the time EGL would comment on the Ideal range, so he sent it to them and the cert did say it fell in the range. Over the years I have fought my OCD about selling it to get a AGS 000.

So what did I get?
1.01 F-VS1
Table 56%
Depth 61.4%
Girdle thin to medium
Symmetry- Good
Polish- Very Good
No fluorescence

The EGL cert told me crown height was 14.5% and pavilion depth was 44%. I calculated the crown angle @ 33.38 and the pavilion angle @41.34. So not truly an ideal cut, but it's got a lot of punch. The HCA rating was 2.8. So is going with a AGS 000 that has a true H&A performance going to be a huge leap forward?

Then there is what to do with the current diamond? I was thinking of something in the 1-1.25 range, F color and VS clarity.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Oh on a side note, I did get her a .58 AGS 000 for our 10 year anniversary, what's crazy is I put the specs into the HCA tool and it came out to a 2.9? How in the world did her 1.01ct get a 2.8 with the HCA tool, very confused.

 

[MissGotRocks]

Hello and welcome!

Her current stone gets dinged because of the 41.34 pavilion angle; anything 41 and over takes a hit. I can understand that it's probably a pretty stone but it falls out of the ideal range. If you change the pavilion angle to 40.9, the stone then scores a .9 on the HCA. Makes a big difference!

As far as the .58 stone, we'd have to know all the angles to see why it falls short as well.

As to your question, I think a 1.25 well cut stone would look larger and probably better than her current stone. I think your idea of upgrading her stone for your 20th anniversary is a good one - very thoughtful and I'm sure it will be appreciated!

You could always reset her current stone into a pendant for her to wear - then she would have two beautiful pieces of jewelry! You can use the search tool at the top of the page for stones - input the carat weight, color and clarity ranges that you are interested in and see what comes up. If you check the AGS0 box, you will find some of the top cut, high performing stones available.

If you find something you want to consider, post a link and many here will be happy to give you their opinion on the stone.

Happy hunting!

 

[AdaBeta27]

re. sell the current diamond: Is your wife on board with that? Some women are sentimental about original ring and diamond, and would not trade or sell theirs for the world. Others would gladly sell or trade theirs for an upgrade.

1.25ct range would get you a diamond with about a 7mm diameter. That would be a noticeable size increase from the 1ct. The general Pricescope rule of thumb is 10% or greater increase in face-up size (surface area, which can be calculated) is a worthwhile upgrade. But some people upgrade for better cut or clarity or shape/make or whatever is important to them.

You could look at SI1 clarity provided it's eyeclean enough. Personally, I could go down in color to G or H in that size range and it would be white enough. Blue fluorescence will help whiten the face-up appearance, too, but usually won't do much for the side view.

If your stone is a very good cut, and a good performer, I'll caution you that you may have to actually look at quite a few potential upgrade diamonds before you see a performance upgrade that you feel is significant. I'll also caution that there are nuances between even AGS 000s. I like a lot of contrast, and I like the chunkier arrows that come from lgf 76 or 77, and I don't like splintery arrows of lgf 80, nor "bland" but bright stones that don't have a strong contrast pattern. I don't like pin fire as much as chunky flashes.

I bought from Good Old Gold, twice, because their Gemex BrillianceScope live report and ISee2 report were both useful to me, since I couldn't see diamonds in person other than the two that I bought. But there was enough difference in those two diamonds and their live BScope reports to convince me that the BScope was a pretty good tool for me. Must not have been useful as a rule, because they don't seem to automatically include that information now. lol The second diamond I bought is an ISEE2 9.8, and it's a knockout.

[URL='https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/is-brilliancescope-reliable.11841/']https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/is-brilliancescope-reliable.11841/[/URL]

 

[Titan7]

Thanks for the feedback, we are thinking of selling the .58 ags 000 and using the f vs1 as the new pendant and purchasing a larger diamond and new setting. Actually we are looking at any size between 1.01 and 1.25. I would like to stay with F color, but I would go with a really high SI1 otherwise stick with VS clarity. Our anniversary is on the 30th so it's not going to happen before then, but at least we are in Maui for a couple weeks to celebrate. Looking at the dealers like WF and BG. At least this time I am much more knowledgeable and there is a TON more info available than there was 20 years ago. I think I did pretty well with e limited info out there back in 1995.

On a side note, would recutting the 1.01 be a mistake? Just changing the PA by .3 puts it into excellent on that HCA tool.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

You could send the diamond to BG for a recut analysis. I had a 1 ct stone recut by them once, and it came back .80 and beautiful. Yours is better cut than mine was, so you'll lose less weight, but the disadvantage is that you'll probably drop slightly below 1 ct. I'd do it before resetting, though. I see no reason to buy another one carat stone. Unless you go to 1.25 and 7mm, you may as well use your current stone. Another idea is to recut the 1 ct stone and then work out a trade with your jeweler using the .58 (and some $) for two .40 sidestones and make a 3 stone ring.

For superideal cuts, look at WF, BG, Good Old Gold, High Performance Diamonds, and Victor Canera.

 

[grateful4life]

When I got a new ring, I decided to have my 1.2 ct round diamond set in a pendant. I get more complements on this necklace than almost all my other jewelry. If she's sentimental about the diamond, she'll love it around her neck. I wear mine every day

 

[dontaskme]

I am in no way an expert but I can't imagine you would notice that much of a difference. I guess it would help with your ocd! I would probably see if dropping a color grade or so and going even bigger would make a more noticeable difference. I doubt you would notice a difference between an F and a G especially if you're going with an ideal cut! just my 2 cents

 

[Titan7]

Found this one but the on WF, the h&a pattern is not perfect, the arrow points aren't exactly perfect, not sure how this impacts light return. I did spend a few hours on BG and WF, best HCA rating I could find was 0.7. Seems the spread of the diamonds was impacting the scores, most are in the 61-61.9%.

1.313 F VS2
TD 61.7 %
Table 55.4%
crown angle 34.4
Crown height 15.3%
Pavilion angle 40.6
Star 54
Pavilion lower 76
7.01x7.03x4.33

The HCA = 0.7

 

[MissGotRocks]

Do you have a link to the stone? Is it from their virtual inventory?

 

[ecf8503]

I did spend a few hours on BG and WF, best HCA rating I could find was 0.7.

Just remember the HCA is a weed-out tool, primarily for those GIA XXX stones that may not be all that well cut in reality (GIA's excellent cut category is too broad, and some not so greats stones end up there). You want an HCA under 2, then get light performance images to confirm. Once you are under 2, lower is not necessarily better - in fact if you get too low it opens a whole new bag of worms.

AGS ideal (0 cut grade) trumps HCA. Idealscope / ASET images trump HCA. WF has images for everything in house -

 

[Titan7]

Never easy, I can't seem to link the diamond to this tread with my iPad. In Maui for another week so no pc access.

 

[Titan7]

Yes, it's on their site

 

[diamondseeker2006]

All of WhiteFlash's ACA stones are outstanding and you do not use the HCA on those. They all have superior light performance. They have great ideal cut stones in Expert Selection, as well, but they are not technically as perfectly cut as those in ACA, and again, you do not use the HCA because the stones are graded ideal cut by AGS and they have the ASET and idealscope images for them to show if they have leakage.

Just so you know, an HCA score of .7 is not better than 1.9 or 1.5. Scores under 2.0 are worth getting further information, but in the case of Whiteflash and vendors who provide light return images and an AGS report, you don't need the HCA in the first place. Also, ideal cut stones mostly will score Excellent on the first three areas of the HCA and very good on spread. That is what you should expect to see on the best stones. Depth is fine through 62.3.

If this is the stone you were looking at, I want to tell you that it is an outstanding cut stone. There is absolutely nothing in these images that conveys anything but a very top cut quality stone. The hearts and arrows are excellent. The numbers are excellent. It's about as perfect a diamond as you will find.

http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-3569939.htm

 

[AdaBeta27]

Don't expect H&A stones to get Excellent on spread on the HCA. Almost none of them will, is my experience.

Usually the diamond has to be something close to 60/60 (60% table and 60% depth) to be rated Excellent on spread by the HCA. Most H&A diamonds will have smaller tables, taller & steeper crown, and overall depth 61-62% because they need to be proportioned that way for fire. 60/60 and other shallow diamonds tend to have large tables and be more brilliant than fiery but they are spready. The fiery ideal cut (FIC) and Old European Cut are at the opposite extreme: very fiery deep stone with very small table and tall crown, and often they face up small for carat wt. an d may look "dark" due to a bias toward fire instead of brilliance.

iirc, there are BIC (brilliance), TIC (balanced) , and FIC (fiery) "ideal" cut stones today, and they have slightly different proportions.