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Tough choice and out of time

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longd

Rough_Rock
Joined
Jan 18, 2004
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8
Hi All,

I've been reading about so many successful stories here how people get educated on diamonds and how they find the perfect stone for themselves or their love ones. Now time has come for me to ask for help from all of you. In about a month I'm going to propose to my gf. After much seatch for my dream stone and setting, I'm settled on the setting but still searching for my stone. Basically my minimum requirements are:

Shape: Round
Weight: 1.00-1.2c
Cut Grade: Ideal (doesn't have to be H&A)
Colour Grade: F
Clarity Grade: VS2/SI1
Polish: excellent
Symmetry: excellent
Fluorescence: none
Budget: $5K to 6.5K

I know some of you may ask why I don't settle for colour G instead of F. The answer is my gf has a strong opinion on colour and she does have good eyes. When we went to a local jeweller recently, she could tell between F and G as well as E and F.
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Anyway, I saw the following stones at GOG, niceice, and WF.


NiceIce
===========
Weight 1.03
Clarity SI1
Depth 61.4%
Table 56%
Girdle N-M-F
Culet N
Colour E
Crown Angle 34.9
Pavilion Angle 40.9
Polish EX
Symmetry EX
Fluorescence N
$6275

GOG
===========
Weight 1.08
Clarity SI1
Depth 60.8%
Table 56%
Colour F
Crown Angle 34.8
Pavilion Angle 40.8
Polish ID
Symmetry ID
Fluorescence N
$6562

WhiteFlash
===========
Weight 1.13
Clarity SI1
Depth 61.2%
Table 57%
Girdle THN-ME
Culet N
Colour F
Crown Angle ??
Pavilion Angle ??
Polish EX
Symmetry EX
Fluorescence N
$6185

Can you please tell me what you think of these? Thanks for your advice and great help! I'm looking forward to hearing your opinions and suggestions.

-LongD
 
No, that stone isn't a White Flash.

White Flash does have a 1.05 F SI1 A Cut Above stone, but it's pricier than the ones you've listed at $6945. The white flash stone listed is an AGS stone, but I do not believe that White Flash has it in store, so it would take a little research to get the angles.

I would personally recommend the Good Old Gold stone. It's the only one that you've seen all the stats for, and the price is good compared to the smaller A Cut Above stone I found. It's true that you might a stone with "triple very highs" on the brilliance scope or a 9.8 on the ISee2 if you badger a bunch of vendors for this extra information. It's really a matter of whether or not the extra research is worth a slightly better performing or less expensive stone. The other stones look good on paper (except for the White Flash stone you listed with no numbers . . . who knows in that case), but sometimes the numbers are misleading, and I would rather have all the results possible before making a decision.
 
Hi LongD !!!

Did you see this one ???
Good luck !
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Sorry, forgot to say: only $5,524 !
 
If you gf is big on color, perhaps go with the Nice Ice "E" color. When you dealing with hundredths of a carat, you will be hard pressed to find a difference in size. You can even look at the diameter. The difference of .05 carats may be only 0.05 mm in diameter. You might even have a little trouble telling which one is bigger if they are next to each other. However, if you gf has eagle eyes, she may appreciate the E color.
 
Actually, I wanted offer an alternate perspective on the .05c not being visible etc. It really depends on the cut, but I have seen stones that have .10mm difference (which could be .05c) and the size difference was noticeable to me. Everyone's eyes tend to be different, but while measuring up the stones to each other, be sure to also compare the diameters....depending on depth the stone MAY face up larger than a typical 1.03 or 1.08 and that may help the decision along.
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Actually, Stephan, the diamond you linked to on DCD looks off to me.....it seems as though the culet is off center.




In the pictures, it looks as though the left arrows are squished. Maybe that's why the price is so much better.
 
longd, make sure to find out if the SI1 stones are eye clean. I'm also sensitive to color and prefer stones in the colorless range. The choices you posted are similar and I'd consider the E color from NiceIce and I'd get more info on the Whiteflash stone as a second pick. Just my taste and opinion. Good luck!
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Hi LongD !

I would ask a MEGASCOPE-OGI for the diamond I mentionned above.
 
Out of all the stones you guys suggested I really like the NiceIce 1.09 E/SI with HCA score of 1.3 and the second WF 1.03 E/SI ACA with HCA score of 1.5. Like what aljdewey said I also found the DCD stone off center. Sorry I'll pass on that one. Nevertheless the price is very attractive and I really appreciate Stephan's help. /idealbb/images/smilies/21.gif




Anyway more data is coming tomorrow. I'll keep everyone posted!




Cheers,


-longd
 
As promised Lesley from WF has sent me the AGS cert and the report. The 1.13ct F/SI stone has some very nice numbers.

Weight: 1.13ct
Colour F
Clarity: SI
AvgCA:34.6 Min/Max: 34.3/35.0 Depth: 14.4/15.3
AvgPA:43.2% Min/Max:2.87/2.92 Angle: 40.8/41.2
Girdle: thn-me 0.7-1.6
Culet: 0.7
Table: 57.0% 3.83mm
Total Depth: 61.2%

Looking forward to hearing what you think of this.

Cheers,
-longd
 
Of all the candidates you've posted, I like the Nice Ice diamond the best. I'd prefer a feather that lies parrallel to the facets cut over a cluttered center in the stone. I'd be interested to see further info on the WF diamond. It scores well on the HCA and you'll get a slightly bigger presence with the WF diamond. But of the info (pics, certs, etc.) available on all the diamonds you selected, I like the Nice Ice diamond the best.
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Did you check out Joe Escobar's settings while you were there? I love their selection. They can be pricey though, with the designers they carry. But good place to get ideas.




Since you mention eternity style band..my e-ring is custom eternity style with .72ctw and we had it custom in platinum for $2k. We had it done with our jeweler in Aptos. Also important to note that with something like .15ctw all the way around, you are talking some extremely small stones (.005c each). It may not even be worth it at that point to get something like that custom, because with custom you aren't necessarily paying for the diamond melee, but rather the work to make the ring from scratch. I do know that our jeweler in Aptos had a Stuller setting similar to what we wanted, but it wasn't in platinum...only white gold I believe. They could have done that one for alot cheaper because it wasn't custom from scratch. Since we wanted platinum, we paid through the nose for the same thing from scratch.




Anyway my point is that if you do go custom, price it out with more ctw..e.g. .50c or similar..at least that way you have .02c stones all the way around and I bet it won't be that much more $$ because again, it's the WORK on the ring that is expensive when you are talking custom...not necessarily the tiny diamonds in it. Pricing from .005 to .02 per stone will not be THAT different--won't break the bank anyway.




However, since the time we had our ring made, A. Jaffe came out with an excellent set that is not eternity, but looks like it when the ring is on for the most part...you can check it out in the Show Me the Ring forum where I posted on it maybe a month ago. The e-ring itself is platinum and has something like .20ctw on a very thin shank of around 2mm and it is about $1000 in platinum ($700 or so in white gold!) with various online jewelers. The wedding ring is the same price I believe..and if you feel really daring, you can get the 2 wedding rings, one for either side of the e-ring. I tried the setting on at our Aptos jeweler and it was amazing how similar it was to my custom ring, but not eternity. However for 1/2 the price...I would heartily recommend it if you don't want to fork over the custom $$! If A.Jaffe had had this when we were looking, I may have been really tempted! Especially since now we are having the wedding ring custom made at WhiteFlash...and that's not cheap either! Could have had the entire AJ set for what we paid for our e-ring for the most part!




My two cents!
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BTW we are in San Jose as well.
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We did look at the settings at Joe Escobar and found their selection to be quite nice. In particular we like the Michael B settings (similar yours).... with a thin band.




When I said .15ctw all the way around, I really meant to say something like 9-10 stones equally spaced around the ring.
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It's similar to a Memoire Paris setting we saw in Valley Fair. In terms of cost I completely agree with you that it's all about the molding and labor. The small stones are not going to make a big difference.




Thanks for your pointers. The A. Jaffe settings are very nice (and thin) but they're not eternity style. Anyway my gf has already got a few ideas as to how the ring should be. So I'll be happy to spend a little bit extra given this is a once in a life time thingy.
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Again thank you to all of you and your wisdom!




Cheers


-longd


ps. I work in SJ but live close to SF.
 
David,




Thanks for pointing out the inclusion problem. I'll contact NI for some better images.




Cheers,


-longd
 
Stephan,




I requested for megascope images as you suggested. It's kinda funny how they responded to my email. Basically DCD didn't really look at my request. All they cared to tell me is the stone is still available and gave me the crown/pav angles as stated on their website. To me this is definitely not a very good start.




Cheers,


-longd
 
That's a pitty!

I already asked them a megascope, and I received it 1 hour later!
If you have the megascope, you can see if the culet is really out of center... or if they didn't take a good picture!
 
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