http://www.jamesallen.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut/0.78-carat-i-color-si1-clarity-ideal-cut-sku-90777
Is it just me or does this seem overpriced for a badly tinted I/SI1?
Is it just me or does this seem overpriced for a badly tinted I/SI1?
Why is this diamond so expensive?
- Thread starter smilligan
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smilligan|1387363935|3576702 said:
Pretty sure its just you.
Of the 14 stones currently in the Pricescope database that are .78cts I-SI1 it is the second most expensive. It is part of their True Hearts line and is the only one currently in the database that has an AGS triple 0 cut grade. It has an HCA grade of 1.7 and the only other stone with an HCA grade showing is 4.8 GD.
The diamond is also the only one of the 14 stones to have a an ideal scope image and picture listed on the sort, two others have the cert image.
I also reject your premise that a diamond with an I color is badly tinted.
Just curious, why do you find it necessary to attack this one stone out of the fourteen? Why do you feel it correct to declare an I color as badly tinted?
Wink
TC1987
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TC1987|1387374813|3576772 said:Maybe it's the OP's computer? That stone looks like an M from the side on my monitor. There is a HUGE difference between how white it's facing up, and how much tint it shows it from the side. Enough to make me wonder if the video is the wrong diamond.
LOL, you could be right. The stone does look more like the M or the O that I sold recently than an I. I just assumed that is the lighting for the video. I do not normally visit JA so I can not comment on the lighting or coloring of their other videos. The inclusions that I can see in the video appear to match the diagram on the AGS report.
I know for sure that with an AGS report , assuming that this is the same stone, that there is no way the diamond is as yellow as it looks in the video. I also know, after spending a couple of hours shooting videos one evening, that having the wrong light bulb in the ceiling can make even a D color look bad.
Wink
Interesting to me to hear a jeweller saying an I color is not a badly tinted stone. I have a small diamond which is 47 points and I was at a jeweller on the main street in a UK city and was looking at trading it in for another stone. I would say the jeweller is an upscale place with lovely wooden cases and it highly thought of and the owners are into charity in the city in a bit way. I would say it is very upscale and knowing what I know now I would not have the nerve to show them that diamond now, although it is very bright.
They were going to give me £600 as he said it was worth about £1500. (A few years back and not internet pricing or American for that size of stone obviously). I said to him I had paid £1800 from a store which issued their own report card with it. It is not a bad cut but not like todays with arrows and great symmetry. I told him the report I got from the jeweller (I know not independent) said it was a G.
His reply was rather indignant, and he said to me, "That's not a G, I would say it is an H. They say all their diamonds are a G." The tone he used really relayed to me that he thought G was fine but H was horrible. Maybe a jeweller would know and not me but maybe he was just speaking in a monetary sense. I had decided at that stage not to trade in as the stone I had showed more life than the one I was looking at which was a 0.68 carat.
This jeweller is well respected and a family store, I don't see them as being like the chain stores, I just think he thought an H was not good but I don't know I don't think it was the loss of a sale as my sale was not big compared to some of the diamonds they have.
This has always put me off anything below G and I feel I see the difference now but maybe not.
Just remembered he did say also that his gemmologist said it was an H also. The diamond is set in yellow gold with white gold basket and was bought together in 2002.
They were going to give me £600 as he said it was worth about £1500. (A few years back and not internet pricing or American for that size of stone obviously). I said to him I had paid £1800 from a store which issued their own report card with it. It is not a bad cut but not like todays with arrows and great symmetry. I told him the report I got from the jeweller (I know not independent) said it was a G.
His reply was rather indignant, and he said to me, "That's not a G, I would say it is an H. They say all their diamonds are a G." The tone he used really relayed to me that he thought G was fine but H was horrible. Maybe a jeweller would know and not me but maybe he was just speaking in a monetary sense. I had decided at that stage not to trade in as the stone I had showed more life than the one I was looking at which was a 0.68 carat.
This jeweller is well respected and a family store, I don't see them as being like the chain stores, I just think he thought an H was not good but I don't know I don't think it was the loss of a sale as my sale was not big compared to some of the diamonds they have.
This has always put me off anything below G and I feel I see the difference now but maybe not.
Just remembered he did say also that his gemmologist said it was an H also. The diamond is set in yellow gold with white gold basket and was bought together in 2002.
Wink|1387368941|3576711 said:
Sorry. I should have provided more clarification in my OP. I wasn't necessarily comparing the price to the prices of other stones in the database, but rather to those I've looked at personally. I understand that providing videos/pictures increases the price of a diamond, and I can appreciate that. I also know that AGS 000 stones sometimes command a premium over GIA triple ex (again, from what I've seen). It just seemed a little on the high side. I didn't mean to imply that it was wildly overpriced. I was mainly referring to the percent increase over similar stones I've seen. I also don't think I colored stones are badly tinted. I just bought an I myself and it's extremely white. I was simply referring to THAT stone. It looks very tinted from the side view. As for attacking the stone - again, I wasn't searching the database. I just happened to be comparing some JA stones and I was wondering why that one was priced the same or higher than much whiter looking ones.
ETA: I left a lot of stuff out because I was coming off a 12 hour shift at the hospital, but part of my curiosity stemmed from the fact that another thread popped up on PS recently about a "brown" tint H diamond. In that thread, one of the posters states that it should be priced lower than comparable diamonds.
c-k
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smilligan|1387398095|3577008 said:
I also would apologize. I had just gotten out of bed and for some reason the post seemed to unfairly attack the diamond. I am a competitor of JA's and not accustomed to defending them, but I specialize in top top cutting and am always being told that my stones, which do cost MUCH more to produce are too high compared to some poorly cut diamond. I had to leave in five minutes for my 5:15AM appointment (meeting a friend to work out every M-W-F). Long story short, I should have been a LOT less antagonistic in my original reply. Please accept my sincere apology.
Wink
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Pyramid|1387390767|3576933 said:
Pyramid,
I wish I could say I was always an equal opportunity seller of lower colored diamonds, but I would be dishonest to do so. For many many years I tried never to sell anything below a G, showed an H or an I only when I was specifically requested so and even then only after I voiced my condemnation of the whole concept of the lower colored gems. I did not much care for anything below a VS1 either.
In short, I was selling to the public as I would expect to sell a member of the trade on the excellence of my rocks. One day a good friend with whom I did a LOT of business and traveled to Antwerp with two or three times told me we needed to have a serious discussion about how I was cheating both myself and my clients out of a lot of satisfaction and business. (This was MANY years before I met Paul and became an Infinity dealer, so you know it was long before some of my current clients were even born. We are actually talking pre-Internet days here.)
I thought he was full of prunes and argued with him for at least another year before he finally came up with an idea to prove to me what a bonehead I was.
Some of you might be thinking slotted tray, and you would be correct. This great idea came to me from a small diamond dealer in Montana who was wise beyond his years. Some of the greatest minds in the business use it too, such as Brian Gavin and John Pollard. First we did it with me, setting many stones on a tray with no information about what was what. I soon found that I was choosing or eliminating stones not for the color or clarity, but for the pizzaz or lack thereof.
I think the seminal moment for me came many years later when I had two Crafted by Infinity diamonds in my office in Boise. One was a 2.09ct D-IF that Paul and I had been working on for about ten months by the time I received the diamond in my office. The other was a 3.29 J-SI1 if I remember correctly. I had them both for about 2 weeks and never missed an opportunity to show them to clients when they came in.
During the two weeks, and I need to say that by then I was already primarily Internet so I did not see a lot of actual people on a daily business. Of the twenty ladies that I was able to show the two diamonds, 18 told me they liked the 3.29ct best. The men were about 50-50 and most of them who chose the smaller diamond looked at the diamonds, lifted the tray and said something about the bigger diamond being yellow so they liked the smaller diamond better. Only a couple of them told me they knew they should like the smaller stone better, but they still liked the bigger stone best.
Thing that scared me, a LOT, was that I actually liked the 3.29ct better too. Now these were both Crafted by Infinity diamonds so there was no question that the cutting was equally incredible on both diamonds, but side by side, I liked the J better. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ME?????
Literally with shaking hands I called Jim Caudill at the AGS lab and "confessed" my sins to him. Why do I feel this way I wanted to know, when I KNOW BETTER!!!
The answer was actually quite relieving. The bigger diamond had bigger virtual facets and created more eye visible dispersion. Plus the colors stood out a little more in contrast to the very light yellowish tint of the diamond. Since I am one of those "dispersion lovers", there was little doubt why I liked the bigger stone better.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVED that D-IF 2.09 and it was probably the nicest diamond I have ever sold, but, by a hair, it was not quite the prettiest. It was special for what it was and it cost more than twice as much as the 3.29, but darned if I did not like the 3.29 better.
Ever since then, I have used the tray more and more and welcome letting people see what THEY like. I no longer try to influence people into buying what I like.
And thus endeth the ramble of a happy man in the diamond business.
Wink
Wink|1387400901|3577036 said:
No worries. I'm not a morning person, so I can definitely understand.
I can see why my post was interpreted negatively. I left out most of what I was thinking, lol. I think the cut and light performance are great. I was just wondering how diamond prices are decided in a stone with noticeable tint. Granted, I know that the tint may not be noticeable IRL. Also, I've looked through several of the diamonds on HPD and am always impressed by the cut quality. Diamond cutting is an art and I will always appreciate great art.
heididdl
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I think people may be missing my point. I'm wondering why it's that price. It's not just the cut. For example:
http://www.jamesallen.com/loose-dia...-i-color-vs2-clarity-excellent-cut-sku-247824
The above diamond is an I/VS2 with noticeably less tint, it's still H&A, it's slightly larger both carat wise and face up, and it's cheaper. Is the GIA report really worth that much less with an H&A? Shouldn't the tint of the first stone bring the price down?
http://www.jamesallen.com/loose-dia...-i-color-vs2-clarity-excellent-cut-sku-247824
The above diamond is an I/VS2 with noticeably less tint, it's still H&A, it's slightly larger both carat wise and face up, and it's cheaper. Is the GIA report really worth that much less with an H&A? Shouldn't the tint of the first stone bring the price down?
c-k
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Looks like it is a branded H&A stone (TrueHearts TM), carried only by JA. I would have liked to see their Hearts and Arrows standard but the website is rather bare. GIA does not grade H&A but will note it on the lab report if there is an inscription or notation on the girdle.
http://www.trueheartsdiamonds.com/default.htm
http://www.trueheartsdiamonds.com/default.htm
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smilligan|1387430541|3577308 said:
It would be wonderful to see the two stones in real life side by side as then we could perhaps answer some of the questions. An AGS 0 cut grade diamond does sell at a 3 - 5 % premium over a GIA XXX cut grade. Taking a very quick look at this diamond I see that it has a shallow pavilion angle of 40.6. This means to me, that as an average measurements that at least some of the pavilion main angles will be below 40.6 which personally I do not like. The low pavilion angle, partnered with a high crown angle of 35.5 gives it a look that many do like though and also an HCA grade of 1.3. (Garry Holloway likes the lower crown angles and his HCA system rewards them.)
Sadly, there is no IS image to look at, although I would anticipate some leakage from this low of a pavilion angle. If the precision is tight and the variance of pavilion angles is small this would not be as much of a problem as it might be if the precision is loose and some of the pavilion angles reach 40.4 or below.
If the variance of color is as large as it appears in the video then you would be correct, but until we can see them side by side, I am taking the too visual color for an I as an aberration of the lighting for that diamond that looks more like an M than an I.
Just as an aside. While searching for this diamond in the Pricescope sift there were nearly 300 diamonds at 0.80cts I-VS2. When I narrowed the parameters to HCA excellent to very good it reduced the field to 20 some odd diamonds, of which this diamond was not included as the crown angles and pavilion angles were apparently not included in the diamond information for the database even though this diamond is part of the True Hearts line.
I suspect that this is a beautiful diamond, but I strongly think that if we had an ASET to look at that we would like the image less than that of the first stone that you posted.
I am also pretty sure that we would visually like both of these stones better than many of the diamonds posted at lower prices because of their lower quality of cutting, but to fully analyze that would take hours that I do not have this time of year.
One thing I know for sure. Diamonds are cut and polished for the lowest prices possible because every one is trying to be the cheapest guy on the block. Only a few cutters are cutting strictly for beauty rather than weight retention, and those diamonds cost more to make and thus must sell for more. Sure, there may be a few "lucky bargains" out there, but they will be few and VERY hard to find.
Have a great day!
Wink
Thanks for the response, Wink and Chrono. I'm still a little confused about the IS, though. The link does show one for me (as with all TrueHearts) and it looks great. Since both stones are in the TrueHearts line and both have comparable IS, is ASET really that important? I understand your time constraints and I appreciate you taking the time to reply.
ETA: does the first diamond list that it's an H&A on the report? Am I missing something?
ETA: does the first diamond list that it's an H&A on the report? Am I missing something?
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