Tough Journey to Find a 1.5 to 1.6 Princess w/ Great Sparkle

[tjwillia007]

I have been reading on this forum and elsewhere for awhile now; and believe I have learned quite a bit… Though will admit upfront I have a lot to go and am probably still naive as a result of being a relative newbie. That all aside…

I am getting ready to purchase within the next couple weeks what I hope to be a 1.5 to 1.6 carat Princess. The guiding focus has been to get one with the best visible presentation (especially sparkle) and worry slightly less about the less visible items to the naked eye (e.g. buying a VS1 instead of a VVS2 or better).

As far as numbers go, I have tried to gather what seems to be the best ranges for my budget($12K). They are:

Shape: Princess
Report: GIA
Carats: 1.5 to 1.6
Color: F
Clarity: VS1
Polish: Very Good
Symmetry: Good
Total Depth: 65 to 74%
Table: 62 to 68% (I have been told it is ideal to have it 3 – 5% less than Total Depth?)
Crown Height: 11 to 13.5%
Girdle: Medium to Slightly Thick
Culet: None
Fluorescence: None
L-to-W Ratio: 1:1.0 to 1:1.01
BrillianceScope: Very High for all 3 categories, with Scintillation max’d out all the way to the right.

Afterwards, I have tried applying that to actually finding a similar stone at high-end jewelers in Boston (e.g. Shreve, Crump, & Low) as well as from two of the vendor’s that appear to be well respected on this site - GOG and SuperbCert. I have considered calling a couple places with Lazare Kaplan’s (maybe Topper’s in California) – though have not yet, as I am still unclear whether I am getting anything more for the additional cost than a premium name. Thoughts?

Anyway, the obvious problem (even after putting price aside) is that using these numbers alone as a guiding principal has not yet yielded a single result. I get close, though every stone seems to be lagging in a couple areas such as Crown Height, Girdle, and/compromising Color or Clarity by 1 grade. For example, the best candidates I have been able to find are these two:

A. GOG (http://www.goodoldgold.com/princess_1_52ct_g_vs1.htm), though is a VS2 with clarity exceptions on the top of the stone, Crown height is below the range, BrillianceScope has the White Light / Brilliance as “only” high, and concerning Virtual Modeler output.

B. SuperbCert (http://www.exceldiamonds.com/diamond/151.html), though is a G color, has an extremely thin girdle, and while it has a White Light / Brilliance higher than the GOG stone – it’s Dispersion and Scintillation are slightly lower.

Granted, I have not seen either in person – though both appear to be great stones with a majority of the qualities I am looking for, though fall short against some the numbers I have come across as suggested guides.

After all that rambling, I have a few main questions:

1. Are my consolidated notes above in-line with reality and finding a decent Princess for my budget of $12,000 for the stone?

2. Are there certain criteria in my list which are really not quite as important?

3. I am possibly considering the GOG stone, though the Virtual Modeler didn’t appear to have favorable results. How important is this versus the BrillianceScope?

4. Are Lazare Kaplan’s the best or only way for me to find what I am looking for?

5. Outisde of actually getting the opportunity for seeing a stone in person, am I overlooking anything that I should be paying attention to?

Thanks so much,

-Todd

 

[valeria101]

Date: 3/20/2005 3:52:14 PM
Author:tjwillia007


After all that rambling, I have a few main questions:

1. Are my consolidated notes below in-line with reality and finding a decent Princess for my budget of $12,000 for the stone?

I wouldn't know to look for any better - sure that. There's an AGS Ideal standard for princess cuts in the making. That should affect prices as soon as it hits shops 9anyone's guess how)... and I could not bet these stones are close to the new requirements. Just one thing to consider.



2. Are there certain criteria in my list which are really not quite as important?

There might be too many. I would look at size, price and brilliance (leaving numbers aside - since it is not clear if and how each has any effect on the looks of the stone. Where "looks" amounts to ligh return and size, IMO).

Also, I would look below VS1 (definitely VS2 and SI1).

and not focus only on the B-SCope as test of brilliance. For once, it's scores are allot more relevant for what diamonds look like under bright light (say, jewelry store lighting, not the usual hone & office light conditions). Bscope resuts are useful, but do conflict with other tools'. There's need for a grain of salt here, IMO.




3. I am possibly considering the GOG stone, though the Virtual Modeler didn’t appear to have favorable results. How important is this versus the BrillianceScope?

The scale of the Gem Advisor is not adjusted differently for each shape. Princess cuts score lower than round anyway - so the GA score of the best princess cut possible will not be "top". The top score for princess would still be somewhere lower on that scale.
For comparison - the scale of the Brilliance Scope comes in versions specific to each cut - so "top" is possible for a princess cut.


4. Are Lazare Kaplan’s the best or only way for me to find what I am looking for?

Do those come with Bscope scores ? Any chance to compare one of these non-branded princesses with a LK cut ? How about prices ?


5. Outisde of actually getting the opportunity for seeing a stone in person, am I overlooking anything that I should be paying attention to?

I don't think so... GOG lines up just about every analysis of brilliance out there. Perhaps all that info still falls short of actualy lining up 100 diamonds on the table. But that's not quite feasible, as far as I understand.
If you do bring the selection down to two stones from the same seller, you could ask for side-by-side photos (or even order both stones and return one) - either version was done before through mutual agreement, although there is no "standard arrangement" for such shopping procedure.

Hope some of the 0.2 worth helps

 

[valeria101]

The two princess cuts from GOG and Excel come with allot of info to compare.

What I see:

- They are both deep (73% and 75%) and not particularly large for the weight, although this is common among princess cuts. Not great news, but hard to improve upon. I wish there werea bout 65% deep at most.

- The face up look should be quite different because of the table size: the GOG stone is a typical princess with a square-ish table (65%). SuperbCert princess is a breed apart with very small roundish tables (this one is 61%) and high crowns. The Ideal SCope images show this, I think:

Square princess at GOG Square-ish princess at ExcelDiamondsdly be any br


The Iscope images show allot of brilliance - there''s barely conceivable room for improvement there. The stone should look different, but could hardly be any brighter.

How about Shape ans safety ?

- The Superbcet diamond is slightly rectangular - actually, GIA calls it "modified rectangular brilliant". The other stone is very square... No big deal. Usually square princess cuts are preffered, but this being a branded cut the point is moot.

- One of thes has an "extremely thin" girdle (See GIA cert) and that''s not the safest bet for a princess cut. If there is some alternative... at least "thin" would make chips less likely. As is, princess cuts have a bit of a reputation for getting those corners chipped.

How about the BScope results?
This machine rewards contrast brilliance (the presence of blac patches under Ideal SCope - spots that return light straight up or get effectivey "black" when looked at up close) more than either the IdealSCope refference chart or the GA. Not surprisingly, the SuperbCert stone gets the "white light'' score higher and shows more black under the scope.
Since there is such thing as "too much black", I would not take the slightly better Bscope of the Superbcert stone as a clear advantage. These two stones are just as great in terms of light return - IMO.

oh well... I hope the long posts were not uncalled for. It''s been a while since any princess cut with decent information was posted. talking about "table & depth" with nothing else to show what the stone does to light is terribly frustrating

I''ve been waiting for a comparison like this !

 

[tjwillia007]

Thanks Ana for your input and time spent with such thorough replies. It is really appreciated.

The girdle was my main concern with the SuperbCert, so I will stick with the suspicion that the GOG stone in this case is better for my needs.

However, I still have two concerns with the GOG stone I will need to ponder over. I have been mostly looking at VS1's to date. This is the first VS2 I have really looked at in any seriousness, and the clouds & feathers appear to be in the worst possible spot (from a laymen's perspective) - top center. I agree that I have focused so much on the Brilliance scope, though if the white light Brilliance is barely in the High category on the GemEx report - won't it the over sparkle of the diamond be worse in everyday lighting conditions?

As for your question about getting a Briliiance Scope report on a LK diamond, the shops I have contacted so far can only provide ISee2 information. It will be a big game of hit or miss finding a shop that offers Brilliance Scope (or better yet, both ISee2 and Brilliance Scope) in addition to being an authorized seller of LK stones. Unless anyone out there knows of one?

Hopefully this thread attracts interest and we can get more opinions on the matter. While understandable given the lower market demand, it seems like there is so little information about Princess cuts - at least in comparison to round brilliants and such.

-Todd