Using a B&M''s Ideal Scope - A little confused!

[mindscape9]

First I want to thank everyone for all of their posts - they have really helped educate me!

I went into a B&M the other day to check out a stone I have my eye on and after speaking to the salesman for a bit, I asked if they had an ideal scope for me to look at the stone through. They did and he brought it out for me to examine the stone. However, when I looked through it, i was surprised by what I saw - everything was blue, black, and white!

When I looked at the ideal cut stone as a comparison, it had the hearts and arrows pattern, but the image was white, blue, and black. I am assuming that the blue is the same as the red in the pictures I see on here, but I just want to be sure. I was a little flustered by not being able to understand what I was seeing, even after doing the research, and, honestly, forgot if the hearts were white or black or blue. Hopefully someone will have experienced this before and can help. If anyone has any experiece with this or can me help me understand what the different colors mean, I would really appreciate it.

Just for reference, the B&M store was Jared''s and the stone I have my eye on is a princess cut, but the sameple stone I looked at was round.

Thanks!
Mindscapei9

 

[chrono]

That sounds more like a Hearts and Arrow viewer. The Idealscope "view" should be red, black and white. What did the device look like?

 

[JulieN]

the H and A viewer will only show you symmetry.

 

[mindscape9]

Thanks for the responses!

The device was longer than the pictures I have seen on here - I''d say about 6-7 inches tall. It also had a base of some sort with two black circles, one to look at the stone face down, and the other with a little notch to see the stone face up.

Does this help at all?

 

[chrono]

Yup, that definitely sounds like a H&A viewer. It will not tell you about light performance/leakage of the stone. It only tells you how good the symmety is (arrows and hearts pattern).

 

[JulieN]

pictures of what a princess with excellent symmetry looks like in the H and A viewer: https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/ags-0-princess-bottom-view.34231/=

 

[mindscape9]

Thanks Julie!

Those images are great and now I''ll know what to look for the next time I am in that situation.

Does anyone know where I can possibly get an ideal scope (maybe locally?)? The website that I went to, ideal-scope.com, seems to be out of stock.

 

[strmrdr]

The beginner ideal-scope is available as is the ASET scope, for a princess cut id be tempted to just snag the ASET but the beginner scope will work fine.


http://ideal-scope.com/cart_order.asp

 

[JohnQuixote]

Date: 6/29/2006 5:18:15 PM
Author: mindscape9
Thanks Julie!

Those images are great and now I'll know what to look for the next time I am in that situation.

Does anyone know where I can possibly get an ideal scope (maybe locally?)? The website that I went to, ideal-scope.com, seems to be out of stock.

Hi Mindscape,

The most important difference is that the ideal-scope uses backlighting: The diamond is either set on a light tray or held in tweezers with backlighting (photos here). You see 'through' the diamond in places where light is not being returned to your eye and those areas show up as white.

Hearts & Arrows / optical symmetry viewers show 3D facet relationships using light from above (white) and the sides (other reflector paper color); thread here with an old graphic halfway down the page. They do not show light return.