squawks
Rough_Rock
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2006
- Messages
- 47
Hello, everybody! I am a newbie as you can see with my first post but have no fear as I attempted to educate myself on diamonds to the greatest extent possible with whatever time was left for in the past several months!
Let me apologize in advance for this tediously lengthly post!
It all started when me and my girlfriend went in a Tiffany & Co. store to get ourselves a pair of 'promise rings'. While waiting for our order of platinum bands to go through, I was quite impress with the brilliance, scintillation, and fire of the diamond stones there. Tiffany placed high Kelvin lighting specifically focused on these diamonds so as to please my eyes. Little did I know it, I was quickly sucked into this diamond blackhole and began with the basic 4 C's.
As time passed, I delved deeper and deeper - now reading into the best proportions, cuts, different standards of appraising diamonds, etc. There is simply too much information!
But, one day, as I finally discovered PriceScope and began reading into several threads here - some complicated talk about the mechanisms/propriety of DiamondDock, IdealScope, HCA backgrounds, the glossary, and shallow vs deep debate...my head began to hurt quite a bit. I heard a loud pop and upon feeling my head, I realized that the day has finally come - my head has exploded from excessive information!
Eventually, I gave up. I simply gave up after the simple fact that my significant other has absolutely no knowledge of diamonds and probably won't ever be interested in the technical aspects of them as long as they continue to hold their aesthetic beauty. With that said, my conquest to capture the best diamond with the most perfect brilliance properties ended...to some extent.
I stopped focusing my search on just purely F and above diamonds with VVS2 or better - simply because my girlfriend can't see well, doesn't want to see well, and most likely doesn't care in the end. Sometimes she even confuses one of my two dachshunds for the other!
And, after reading numerous threads here of how people with J stones say they still look pretty when set in platinum, my worries were eased and I figured hey, if these folks are happy, I'm sure my girlfriend will be! While I may be quite picky with my own eyes and am also color/detail sensitive, it always boils down to the simple fact that the diamond should solely impress my girlfriend! Apparently, the only thing she cares about diamonds is how big they are (carat-wise) and how pretty they appear (briliance, scintillation, and fire). So in effect, I focused on obtaining a stone that is as big as possible - turns out to be ~1.5 carats for a J stone while maintaining great proportions.
I understand that 1.5 is considered one of those 'magic numbers' where cutters tend to usually sacrifice an ideal cut in order to make the 1.5 carat cutoff just for marketing purposes - with that said, I made sure all the proportions remaind ideal and also used HCA as support for this.
So, let's bring on the stones! I have 3 stones picked out; all of them with ideal polish, cut, and symmetry and all graded by the AGSL (all are basically AGS 000). All of them are nearly equally priced, so exclude price as a factor from these stones
. The prospective stone will be set in platinum. All stones have no fluorescence.
Stone #1: 1.554 J/SI1 (AGSL report from 01/2006) with HCA of 1.2 (EX, EX, EX, VG)
Crown angle/%: 34.4/14.9%
Pavillion angle/%: 40.8/43.1%
Table %: 56.5%
Depth %: 61.1%
Girdle: thin to slightly thick, faceted, 1.2 - 4.0%
Culet: pointed
Dimensions: 7.43 x 7.51 x 4.56 mm
Stone #2: 1.550 J/SI1 (AGSL report from 12/13/04) with HCA of 1.2 (EX, EX, VG, VG)
Crown angle/%: 33.7/14.3%
Pavillion angle/%: 41.0/43.4%
Table %: 57%
Depth %: 61.1%
Girdle: thin to slightly thick, faceted, 0.9 - 2.1%
Culet: none
Dimensions: 7.46 x 7.5 x 4.57 mm
**This stone, while maintaing an HCA score of 1.2, only has VG fire - why is that, when the HCA score is the same as stone #1, yet stone #1 has EX fire? It also amuses me that the girdle on this stone is still considered thin to slightly thick when the girdle percentages are quite deviant from stone #1!
**Stone #2 appears to have its internal inclusions near the edges of the pavillion while stone #1 has a concentrated area of inclusions directly beneath the center of the crown (I am concerned the inclusions will be painstakingly noticeable to the naked eye - I'm not concerned about my g/f welding a loupe which she probably won't ever do!)
Stone #3 1.415 J/VS1 (AGSL report with the date mysteriously white-outed but looks like the same format as 2006 report) with HCA of 1.5 (EX, EX, EX, VG)
Crown angle/%: 35.7/16.2%
Pavillion angle/%: 40.6/42.7%
Table %: 55%
Depth %: 62.1%
Girdle: thin to medium, faceted, 1.3 - 3.5%
Culet: none
Dimensions: 7.2 x 7.16 x 4.46 mm
** This stone has a girdle that's not faceted (that matter much?) and has very little inclusions on the report. The HCA score is also only 1.5 - not as good as the scores from the two above.
Additional questions I have:
1) I plan to have the prospective stone appraised to confirm they are legit and stick up to at least the grades in the certificate - I read how some appraisers can also set diamonds in settings for me - is that indeed the case? If not, is it possible to have someone set a loose diamond in a setting that I purchase elsewhere?
2) I have always been a huge fan of the the Tiffany setting - I could have sworn the ones I saw in the store are smooth/rounded (not knife-edged) but posters here showing replicas of the Tiffany setting are indeed knife-edged. Is there such a thing as a smooth/rounded (sorry for not knowing the name) Tiffany setting - and if so, which vendors carry them? EDIT: I am concerned the knife-edge would be bothersome for my g/f!
3) I am aware that two of the stones above are SI1 - I have read from the advice of others to confirm that these stones are 'eye-clean'. These stones are all from online vendors so if they cannot affirm them as eye-clean I always have the option to return/exchange them. I was wondering if that was specifically all I needed to ask over the phone: "can you confirm if they are eye-clean?" - with or without a loupe?
Again, I apologize for indulging in such a long post and thank you very much for reading this far. Any opinions, thoughts, or advice would be highly appreciated.
-Kevin
EDIT: Forgot to enter the information for stone #3 properly!
Fixed now!
EDIT: I would very much desire a Tiffany Lucide-style setting (with rounded, not knife-edged) as the following:
It all started when me and my girlfriend went in a Tiffany & Co. store to get ourselves a pair of 'promise rings'. While waiting for our order of platinum bands to go through, I was quite impress with the brilliance, scintillation, and fire of the diamond stones there. Tiffany placed high Kelvin lighting specifically focused on these diamonds so as to please my eyes. Little did I know it, I was quickly sucked into this diamond blackhole and began with the basic 4 C's.
As time passed, I delved deeper and deeper - now reading into the best proportions, cuts, different standards of appraising diamonds, etc. There is simply too much information!
But, one day, as I finally discovered PriceScope and began reading into several threads here - some complicated talk about the mechanisms/propriety of DiamondDock, IdealScope, HCA backgrounds, the glossary, and shallow vs deep debate...my head began to hurt quite a bit. I heard a loud pop and upon feeling my head, I realized that the day has finally come - my head has exploded from excessive information!
Eventually, I gave up. I simply gave up after the simple fact that my significant other has absolutely no knowledge of diamonds and probably won't ever be interested in the technical aspects of them as long as they continue to hold their aesthetic beauty. With that said, my conquest to capture the best diamond with the most perfect brilliance properties ended...to some extent.
I stopped focusing my search on just purely F and above diamonds with VVS2 or better - simply because my girlfriend can't see well, doesn't want to see well, and most likely doesn't care in the end. Sometimes she even confuses one of my two dachshunds for the other!
And, after reading numerous threads here of how people with J stones say they still look pretty when set in platinum, my worries were eased and I figured hey, if these folks are happy, I'm sure my girlfriend will be! While I may be quite picky with my own eyes and am also color/detail sensitive, it always boils down to the simple fact that the diamond should solely impress my girlfriend! Apparently, the only thing she cares about diamonds is how big they are (carat-wise) and how pretty they appear (briliance, scintillation, and fire). So in effect, I focused on obtaining a stone that is as big as possible - turns out to be ~1.5 carats for a J stone while maintaining great proportions.
I understand that 1.5 is considered one of those 'magic numbers' where cutters tend to usually sacrifice an ideal cut in order to make the 1.5 carat cutoff just for marketing purposes - with that said, I made sure all the proportions remaind ideal and also used HCA as support for this.
So, let's bring on the stones! I have 3 stones picked out; all of them with ideal polish, cut, and symmetry and all graded by the AGSL (all are basically AGS 000). All of them are nearly equally priced, so exclude price as a factor from these stones
Stone #1: 1.554 J/SI1 (AGSL report from 01/2006) with HCA of 1.2 (EX, EX, EX, VG)
Crown angle/%: 34.4/14.9%
Pavillion angle/%: 40.8/43.1%
Table %: 56.5%
Depth %: 61.1%
Girdle: thin to slightly thick, faceted, 1.2 - 4.0%
Culet: pointed
Dimensions: 7.43 x 7.51 x 4.56 mm
Stone #2: 1.550 J/SI1 (AGSL report from 12/13/04) with HCA of 1.2 (EX, EX, VG, VG)
Crown angle/%: 33.7/14.3%
Pavillion angle/%: 41.0/43.4%
Table %: 57%
Depth %: 61.1%
Girdle: thin to slightly thick, faceted, 0.9 - 2.1%
Culet: none
Dimensions: 7.46 x 7.5 x 4.57 mm
**This stone, while maintaing an HCA score of 1.2, only has VG fire - why is that, when the HCA score is the same as stone #1, yet stone #1 has EX fire? It also amuses me that the girdle on this stone is still considered thin to slightly thick when the girdle percentages are quite deviant from stone #1!
**Stone #2 appears to have its internal inclusions near the edges of the pavillion while stone #1 has a concentrated area of inclusions directly beneath the center of the crown (I am concerned the inclusions will be painstakingly noticeable to the naked eye - I'm not concerned about my g/f welding a loupe which she probably won't ever do!)
Stone #3 1.415 J/VS1 (AGSL report with the date mysteriously white-outed but looks like the same format as 2006 report) with HCA of 1.5 (EX, EX, EX, VG)
Crown angle/%: 35.7/16.2%
Pavillion angle/%: 40.6/42.7%
Table %: 55%
Depth %: 62.1%
Girdle: thin to medium, faceted, 1.3 - 3.5%
Culet: none
Dimensions: 7.2 x 7.16 x 4.46 mm
** This stone has a girdle that's not faceted (that matter much?) and has very little inclusions on the report. The HCA score is also only 1.5 - not as good as the scores from the two above.
Additional questions I have:
1) I plan to have the prospective stone appraised to confirm they are legit and stick up to at least the grades in the certificate - I read how some appraisers can also set diamonds in settings for me - is that indeed the case? If not, is it possible to have someone set a loose diamond in a setting that I purchase elsewhere?
2) I have always been a huge fan of the the Tiffany setting - I could have sworn the ones I saw in the store are smooth/rounded (not knife-edged) but posters here showing replicas of the Tiffany setting are indeed knife-edged. Is there such a thing as a smooth/rounded (sorry for not knowing the name) Tiffany setting - and if so, which vendors carry them? EDIT: I am concerned the knife-edge would be bothersome for my g/f!
3) I am aware that two of the stones above are SI1 - I have read from the advice of others to confirm that these stones are 'eye-clean'. These stones are all from online vendors so if they cannot affirm them as eye-clean I always have the option to return/exchange them. I was wondering if that was specifically all I needed to ask over the phone: "can you confirm if they are eye-clean?" - with or without a loupe?
Again, I apologize for indulging in such a long post and thank you very much for reading this far. Any opinions, thoughts, or advice would be highly appreciated.
-Kevin
EDIT: Forgot to enter the information for stone #3 properly!
EDIT: I would very much desire a Tiffany Lucide-style setting (with rounded, not knife-edged) as the following:
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