Was planning to wait but found something!

[NoOTforIT]

I always like being knowledgable before any major purchase and pricescope has been a wonderful resource. I've been reading these forums on and off for about a month. So I've been doing some online shopping and it looks like the diamond inventories are pretty low right now and prices for the quality diamond left are really high. After talking with a number of vendors I had pretty much decided to wait until after the Valentine's day rush to resume my search. I spotted something today on James Allen and placed a hold on it. What do you folks think?

http://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/G-SI1-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1442049.asp

The idealscope image is still pending and I'm waiting for their gemologist to confirm if it's eye clean since there's some inclusions visable in the magnified images. I actually have nothing to compare it against because I can't seem to find anything else similiar in my budget! My budget is around $6,500 if you think you can find me something similiar. Any and all help would be appreciated! Thanks.

 

[minmin001]

it's got med. blue fluor. so ask them and make sure the stone doesn't look cloudy or milky~

 

[tyty333]

Looks to be a nice stone at a good price. Post the aset when you get it so we can have a look.

 

[farmer gal]

It looks really great, pending on JA evaluation of the stone

 

[Gypsy]

I think it looks nice. Have the gemologist check it out completely.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

it's got med. blue fluor. so ask them and make sure the stone doesn't look cloudy or milky~

There are no concerns of cloudiness or milkiness with a medium blue. You only need to be concerned if it is strong blue, and even then, only a few stones are affected negatively. I actually think med blue is great!

 

[NoOTforIT]

I'm still waiting on the gemologist inspection report for this diamond. I also have a design in for a custom setting which James Allen is giving me a great price for! I'll post anything I get as soon as it comes in. So far all my contacts with the company have been great and they've working overtime to accomodate all my requests. I'm on the chat so much I've gotten to know some of their employees!

So now I come to the difficult choice of ring metal. I spoke with one of the JA reps and asked which platinum alloy they would use for my setting. They came back with the Platinum/Iridium 950 alloy which according to this pricescope article "shouldn't be sold".

Then I spent an hour reading through the rather long and painful white gold thread from this summer and now I'm more uncertain than ever! I really don't want to have to deal with constant rhodium plating but the platinum alloy they would use is the most fragile of all the alloys. I've read a bit about palladium but it seems like no one really knows what its long-term prospects are since it's so new as a jewelry metal. What are everyones opinions about this? Cost is not an object since the pricing JA gave me for all metals fits in my budget.

Interestingly enough when I asked JA what white gold alloy they use the rep told me that for business reasons they could not tell me. It was stated to be a new alloy which was selected in "the best interest of the consumer" and would not require rhodium plating. I found this vagueness strange considering how open JA has been throughout the rest of the process but then I ran across the follow-up white gold thread.

In it Mr. Schultz told PS that:

If you save money using alloy this which does not need to be plated with rhodium why do so many makers NOT use it?

Would JA, GOG or Whiteflash (or any maker who sells rhodium-plated WG) please speak up?

Kenny,

I've already spoken with my production team and we are going to do some testing with a couple of the alloys recently discussed in this thread. I woud like nothing more than to sell white gold that doesn't need rhodium plating, although the product must also be sufficiently easy to use and cost-effective. I will provide more updates as they're available.

Is it possible that JA might've started using this alloy or something similiar?

 

[diamondseeker2006]

I have a couple of thoughts. First, I don't think James Allen would be on my list of custom ring makers to be honest. They are primarily diamond sellers and they sell stock settings to go with their stones. I could tell you many good choices of custom ring makers, but very rarely has anyone here had JA make a custom ring. So there is very little to go on to see the quality of their custom work. Secondly, if I am having a ring custom made, I will request and pay for the alloy I want. If the maker will not make it in that metal or my second choice metal, I would contact other ring makers.

My choices for white metal are 95 platinum/5 ruthenium or 90 plt/10 iridium, which is likely what you read is preferable for platinum. Platinum is just going to hold up longer than white gold over the decades which is why I prefer it for rings that will be worn daily.

 

[TristanC]

Looks lovely. Please share the ASET when it comes back.

Share a settings budget? Then we could recommend some people to look towards as well. Just to throw in a bit of choice.

 

[NoOTforIT]

Choice is good! I really don't know anyone in the business and I worry the really talented people are going to be wholesale out of my budget. My budget is about $1,500 for the setting. I'll go as high as $2,000 but would prefer not to. For a quality platinum ring I wouldn't mind too much since I'd pretty quickly forget the $500 but she will not so easily forget her perfect ring. JA has quoted me $1,150~ for a white gold setting (with platinum prongs) and $1,350~ for a platinum setting. My girl has put up the option of buying one of JA's stock settings and having a custom ring made later when we can afford to drop more money on it but that seems to me like throwing away good money.

If it helps any with locating someone, my girl pretty much wants the offspring of a tapered cathedral setting and this heart motif setting. Imagine the tapered cathedral arms on the second setting. It's honestly a pretty simple setting but for the life of me I can not seem to locate a classic solitaire cathedral setting with hearts on it. The most common embellishments I find on cathedral settings are those little "peek-a-boo" diamonds. I'd honestly prefer to buy a stock setting but I've run out of places to look.

Oh and just to have some choice I've placed a second stone on hold:

H-SI1-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond

My girl is extremely sensitive to color and is surprisingly good at spotting the difference between G and H grades. She's done this on a few AGS graded diamond pairs and a whole slew of EGL and IGI cert diamond pairs. I picked out this stone because I don't think she's ever judged a pair of GIA diamonds and GIA are apparently the most strict when it comes to grading color. I noticed this diamond has a much smaller table % and higher depth % compared to the G. Some people here seem to really like the small tables. Why is that?

 

[karpouzi]

You have a healthy budget for an all-metal ring so I would talk to Mark Morrell. His platinum settings might be a leeeetle higher than your budget but they are to die for, and he can work in a heart motif (many of his setting have heart-shaped prongs but I'm sure he'd come up with an amazing design).

http://www.mwmjewelry.com/

 

[YoungPapa]

Interestingly enough when I asked JA what white gold alloy they use the rep told me that for business reasons they could not tell me. It was stated to be a new alloy which was selected in "the best interest of the consumer" and would not require rhodium plating. I found this vagueness strange considering how open JA has been throughout the rest of the process but then I ran across the follow-up white gold thread.

In it Mr. Schultz told PS that:

If you save money using alloy this which does not need to be plated with rhodium why do so many makers NOT use it?

Would JA, GOG or Whiteflash (or any maker who sells rhodium-plated WG) please speak up?

Kenny,

I've already spoken with my production team and we are going to do some testing with a couple of the alloys recently discussed in this thread. I woud like nothing more than to sell white gold that doesn't need rhodium plating, although the product must also be sufficiently easy to use and cost-effective. I will provide more updates as they're available.

Is it possible that JA might've started using this alloy or something similiar?

The answer is "yes". We began testing various 18kt alloys in October and after much experimentation (and a bit of learning) we came up with something that is very workable and nearly the color of platinum. The new alloy has been in production for over a month and you'll see references to our new "TrueWhite Gold" on our product detail and FAQ pages shortly.

Hope this helps,

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Since you are going for a fairly simple design and they will use a white gold alloy that may not need plating, then I think that will be fine. The H diamond looks great assuming they say it is eyeclean! (and if you are sure she is okay with H)

 

[NoOTforIT]

Hi folks,

James Allen just came back with the Idealscope for the G diamond today. It looks pretty good I think? I noticed on the Idealscope reference chart that there are both light return and symmetry images. What's the difference between these two? My rep tells me they can't imagine that the H stone could possibly look any better than this. (It'd just be H color and a little cheaper.) Hmm. Choices!