…of my asscher?
Hi P-scopers!
Now that I have your attention, please be warned, this post is WICKED long! If you do not wish to read the details of my search, please skip to the next post (pictures, etc.).
I’ve been lurking for months and have just started posting in the last couple of days.
DH and I have been married for almost 8 years, have three kids, and have decided this is the year I can have my dream ring made.
I always thought I wanted an oval shaped diamond e-ring. After educating myself as much as I could, mostly by reading NiceIce’s incredibly informative, hilarious and irreverent web site, and talking to Robin about it, I changed my mind and decided to go with a round brilliant instead. Thank you very much NiceIce and Robin for your words of wisdom and the education you offer to us laypeople on your website. It’s got to be one of the best examples of how the web can disseminate “insider industry information” to help create educated consumers. Plus it’s really fun to read. I also purchased some very reasonably priced toys from NiceIce to use while playing with my future purchase(s) (10x loupe, diamond tweezers, polishing cloth).
I also have to thank NiceIce for pointing me in the direction of my Independent Appraiser, Martin Haske. For any of you who don’t know about Marty, here’s what I can share: after getting a BS and an MS at MIT, Marty then spent his career in research at MIT in weapons guidance systems. He started gemology as a hobby, and it has become his second career. He is now a GG, as well as an inventor of things mechanical/electronic that grading labs use in the course of their work (I know I’m not doing this part justice, but for a better look, check out his website at http://www.gis.net/~adamas/ , and check out this review by the Mackley Co. of the SAS2000 created by Marty:
… a review of the SAS2000 for diamond and gemstone evaluation and grading. Lee Davis an AGS-CGA at Seng Jewelers, in Louisville, Kentucky wants other gemologists to know the SAS2000 spectrophotometer, "is not a toy . . . it is a technical gemological instrument used in the evaluation of gemstones".
The SAS2000 provides the most accurate colorimetry available today for diamond color grading, helps determine radiation treatments of diamond, provides better ability than the DeBeer’s DiamondSure to detect probable synthetic diamonds, replaces the spectroscope for transparent gemstone evaluation, and produces a consumer oriented, copyrighted Diamond Quality Analysis Report which shows the WHY of a diamond color grade.The SAS2000 combines a state of the art, dual channel fiberoptic spectrophotometer with an approximate optical resolution of 1.5nm.
Oh, and Marty is also teaching Geology at Suffolk University in Boston. I’m sure he does lots of other things too that I don’t know about, but needless to say, I’m a huge fan of this brilliant, funny, and outspoken guy who is the definition of integrity and so much more than a GG and appraiser!
On to the stone … after scouring the p-scope and other on-line inventory lists obsessively for weeks, and even paying for and having a few stones sent to look at with Marty, something was still missing and I returned them all. Then, one night, I was checking out some p-scope threads, when I happened upon Lovey’s post:
https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/cant-stop-smiling-story-of-a-man-with-a-square-emerald-leon.24458/=
and that was that. I had to have an Asscher. I had never seen one in person, but I knew this was it. It was singing to me through the monitor! I spent the next weeks talking to Fabrikant, Fortunoff, Lester Lampert Diamond Brokers of Fl, and others, trying to find a Royal Asscher. By the way, all of those vendors were incredibly helpful and I’d like to thank them for spending time with me on my search. But I was beginning to feel like Goldie Locks. Everything was too small, or too big and expensive. There were exactly three stones east of Chicago that came close to what I was hoping for, but none were quite right. Also, the premium on the Royals was starting to sound like too much for me. Being a bit of a size ‘ho, I determined that I was willing to give up on the Royal and start hunting for an antique asscher.
After calling a bunch of very nice and helpful estate jewelers (like Nelson Rarities and Firestone and Parsons), I realized the same thing was happening. Antique asschers were incredibly hard to find, and very expensive! So, I called Marty and asked him the specs I should look for in a generic. He gave me the secret formula, and I was off on my final search.
After a few more weeks, I found some stones listed by several p-scope vendors, but decided to go with Whiteflash to have them called in based on WF's fantastic customer service feedback from other p-scopers, as well as their very generous return, buy-back and trade-up policies. First Leslie Harris and then Bob Hoskins spent time with me. Bob ordered the stones sent. Photographed them, had them sarin’d, etc. I forwarded all the information to Marty, who said one stone in particular looked like a killer. That’s all I needed to hear. It arrived on Wednesday, and Marty evaluated it with me yesterday. I’m sitting on it for the weekend to make sure, but I think this might be it.
After so many months of reading the posts of the incredibly generous vendors and informed consumers on this sight, I feel like I know many of you (Lovey, Mara, Nan, Valeria, Dave Atlas, Rhino, Reena, strmrdr, Josh, Tomato, and a ton of others I’m sure I’m forgetting) whithout further ado, I’d like to thank the academy …
I’m a little nervous, but I really want to hear what you guys all think of this stone? If this is it, then I'm on to Mark Morrell who, it turns out, does his magic in my own home town
!!
Pictures coming up.
Cheers,
LizzyD
Hi P-scopers!
Now that I have your attention, please be warned, this post is WICKED long! If you do not wish to read the details of my search, please skip to the next post (pictures, etc.).
I’ve been lurking for months and have just started posting in the last couple of days.
DH and I have been married for almost 8 years, have three kids, and have decided this is the year I can have my dream ring made.
I always thought I wanted an oval shaped diamond e-ring. After educating myself as much as I could, mostly by reading NiceIce’s incredibly informative, hilarious and irreverent web site, and talking to Robin about it, I changed my mind and decided to go with a round brilliant instead. Thank you very much NiceIce and Robin for your words of wisdom and the education you offer to us laypeople on your website. It’s got to be one of the best examples of how the web can disseminate “insider industry information” to help create educated consumers. Plus it’s really fun to read. I also purchased some very reasonably priced toys from NiceIce to use while playing with my future purchase(s) (10x loupe, diamond tweezers, polishing cloth).
I also have to thank NiceIce for pointing me in the direction of my Independent Appraiser, Martin Haske. For any of you who don’t know about Marty, here’s what I can share: after getting a BS and an MS at MIT, Marty then spent his career in research at MIT in weapons guidance systems. He started gemology as a hobby, and it has become his second career. He is now a GG, as well as an inventor of things mechanical/electronic that grading labs use in the course of their work (I know I’m not doing this part justice, but for a better look, check out his website at http://www.gis.net/~adamas/ , and check out this review by the Mackley Co. of the SAS2000 created by Marty:
… a review of the SAS2000 for diamond and gemstone evaluation and grading. Lee Davis an AGS-CGA at Seng Jewelers, in Louisville, Kentucky wants other gemologists to know the SAS2000 spectrophotometer, "is not a toy . . . it is a technical gemological instrument used in the evaluation of gemstones".
The SAS2000 provides the most accurate colorimetry available today for diamond color grading, helps determine radiation treatments of diamond, provides better ability than the DeBeer’s DiamondSure to detect probable synthetic diamonds, replaces the spectroscope for transparent gemstone evaluation, and produces a consumer oriented, copyrighted Diamond Quality Analysis Report which shows the WHY of a diamond color grade.The SAS2000 combines a state of the art, dual channel fiberoptic spectrophotometer with an approximate optical resolution of 1.5nm.
Oh, and Marty is also teaching Geology at Suffolk University in Boston. I’m sure he does lots of other things too that I don’t know about, but needless to say, I’m a huge fan of this brilliant, funny, and outspoken guy who is the definition of integrity and so much more than a GG and appraiser!
On to the stone … after scouring the p-scope and other on-line inventory lists obsessively for weeks, and even paying for and having a few stones sent to look at with Marty, something was still missing and I returned them all. Then, one night, I was checking out some p-scope threads, when I happened upon Lovey’s post:
https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/cant-stop-smiling-story-of-a-man-with-a-square-emerald-leon.24458/=
and that was that. I had to have an Asscher. I had never seen one in person, but I knew this was it. It was singing to me through the monitor! I spent the next weeks talking to Fabrikant, Fortunoff, Lester Lampert Diamond Brokers of Fl, and others, trying to find a Royal Asscher. By the way, all of those vendors were incredibly helpful and I’d like to thank them for spending time with me on my search. But I was beginning to feel like Goldie Locks. Everything was too small, or too big and expensive. There were exactly three stones east of Chicago that came close to what I was hoping for, but none were quite right. Also, the premium on the Royals was starting to sound like too much for me. Being a bit of a size ‘ho, I determined that I was willing to give up on the Royal and start hunting for an antique asscher.
After calling a bunch of very nice and helpful estate jewelers (like Nelson Rarities and Firestone and Parsons), I realized the same thing was happening. Antique asschers were incredibly hard to find, and very expensive! So, I called Marty and asked him the specs I should look for in a generic. He gave me the secret formula, and I was off on my final search.
After a few more weeks, I found some stones listed by several p-scope vendors, but decided to go with Whiteflash to have them called in based on WF's fantastic customer service feedback from other p-scopers, as well as their very generous return, buy-back and trade-up policies. First Leslie Harris and then Bob Hoskins spent time with me. Bob ordered the stones sent. Photographed them, had them sarin’d, etc. I forwarded all the information to Marty, who said one stone in particular looked like a killer. That’s all I needed to hear. It arrived on Wednesday, and Marty evaluated it with me yesterday. I’m sitting on it for the weekend to make sure, but I think this might be it.
After so many months of reading the posts of the incredibly generous vendors and informed consumers on this sight, I feel like I know many of you (Lovey, Mara, Nan, Valeria, Dave Atlas, Rhino, Reena, strmrdr, Josh, Tomato, and a ton of others I’m sure I’m forgetting) whithout further ado, I’d like to thank the academy …
I’m a little nervous, but I really want to hear what you guys all think of this stone? If this is it, then I'm on to Mark Morrell who, it turns out, does his magic in my own home town
Pictures coming up.
Cheers,
LizzyD
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