39 replies to this topic

[davidelevi]

Your description of the inclusion makes it sound like a feather (effectively a fracture in the crystal - nothing to worry about if it's so small that you need a microscope to see it). Feathers, clouds, needles and crystals can all be of various colours, including white.

On proportions: it's a very tough call without having the stone, but... it seems a very shallow crown, deep pavillion and huge table. I would not be surprised if it came back from GIA with a cut grade of Fair. Which doesn't mean it looks bad, but it does mean it's not going to be valued at the top of the market.

[denverappraiser]

There's no way to grade a diamond from a photograph. What I CAN tell you is that, now that I can see the setting, it will not be difficult for a competent jeweler to take it out and your risk of damage to the stone during this process is very low.

[donedating]

Thanks for your comments again, guys. Extremely thrilled to hear that this will be a "low risk" removal.

I have wondered about the cut as well. At times it seems less sparkly than what I remember in the B&M stores, and while one salesman in particular claimed his lighting was bad (and that the diamond was just that spectacular) I wonder if what is in my living room is even worse... I plan on taking a pair of calipers home with me today, and will get some *very* rough dimensions and will update this post in a few hours.

Will hope to get the diameter, and rough estimates of the table and the crown height and pavilion depth, though the setting will interfere with some of these measurements based on the tools I have available.


Hmm, Planned on editing this but apparently never hit submit...
Ok... Although my calipers measurements werent ideal, I think all measurements are accurate within +/- .02 cm.

Diameter .825 cm
Table ~.50 cm
Total Height ~.50 cm
Pavilion ~.39 cm
Crown ~.09

Edit: Plugging this in to Holloway Cut Adviser yields a 3.6. Any commentary on the strengths or weaknesses of this HCA? Really excited to send it to GIA. My gf says we should just forget about GIA, give it to her and never look back, but I'm far too curious.

Edited by donedating, 25 October 2010 - 10:37 AM.

[denverappraiser]

You don't have anything like sufficient info to use the HCA, even if it was applicable in your situation. The HCA has it's uses, but this isn't one of them.

The reason to send it to GIA is as a part of the financial transaction between you and your Dad. This is a sale, not a gift, right? You need to set the price in a way that doesn't leave hard feelings for either one of you. It's quite a bit of money and you're playing with fire to be doing this sort of deal with a close relative because there are so many pitfalls you haven't thought of yet. If there were no money changing hands and your GF loves it, I would agree with her on this. There's value in having a ring that belonged to your ancestors and if she loves it then the grading is largely an academic question. Whether or not it's worth the time and money to get a pedigree would depend on your academic interest. It will be necessary for insurance purposes, and an appraisal is entirely adequate for that, but this wasn't your original question. The GIA is about you and your dad, not you and your girl friend.

Edited by denverappraiser, 25 October 2010 - 12:01 PM.

[donedating]

I think he would be satisfied with the appraisal as far as setting the price. Ultimately, this will be my diamond. Whether I pay for it now or inherit it later. To that end, he had no idea about GIA and all due diligence is on my end. This is the only way it can be, for our family situation and other circumstances, and in that sense all aspects of who should be responsible for paying for what is moot.

Curious that the use of the HCA is not valid for my applications. Is it simply because my eyeball measurements are not sufficient? Or something else I am unaware of?

Edit: And I agree. The questions I am asking and my perspective of things have slowly been evolving. I merely use the same thread for the sake of backstory continuity. The more I read, the more satisfied I am with using the appraisal estimates. Based on your posts, I have decided that the value which I will offer him will be something between the resale value and the forced sale value. And I will make him aware of this, as well as the insurance appraisal. As far as GIA, it has become a merely academic pursuit (for me as you suggest) and I am the only party involved who is interested in this.

Also this purchase will likely be an IOU, added to my student debts to him which are similarly large. At this point, I am not going to haggle +/- 5k, which should provide a cushion against hard feelings.

Edited by donedating, 25 October 2010 - 12:50 PM.

[denverappraiser]

What the HCA is good for is sorting through a list of dozens or thousands of stones that you can't see but where you've got a limited set of relatively reliable information about the various dimensions and are filtering it down to which ones you want to look at more in-depth and in person, eventually ending up with a single stone. Looking at a single stone in isolation, especially a stone that you've got in hand, defeats the point. Using unreliable data undermines the whole thing entirely so you've got an unreliable answer to an inapplicable question. That's why it isn't valid for your situation.

[davidelevi]

There's a number of reasons why the HCA is not suitable:

1. The HCA was devised to weed out "unsuitable" stones at a relatively early stage in the search for a diamond. Not useful to evaluate a "flesh and blood" stone, where anyway (trained) visual impression should always dominate. (Incidentally, with your data the HCA also comes up with a "fish eye" warning - which may be true or not in real life)

2. The HCA works best with crown and pavillion angles; it can work out theoretical ones through trigonometry from size data, but this is adding imprecision to imprecision (the HCA calculation assume perfectly symmetrical stones and a 3% girdle)

3. The precision required to provide sensible HCA output is of the order of 0.5° - or about 0.07 mm on a stone of 8.2 mm diameter; ~5.0 mm can mean 4.5 or 5.5 - about 15x as much as the error the HCA would like to get...

4. As a guide to "diamond beauty" the HCA assesses beauty based on Garry Holloway's taste. However refined and valuable this may be as an input, it is totally secondary compared to yours - and above all your girlfriend's.

[donedating]

Now I find myself in a very interesting spot. On the one hand, I would like it to be as nice as possible, though that would drive up the cost. On the other hand, if she likes it as is, every flaw makes it that much cheaper, though I dont like the sound of fisheye... Ive looked it up online and am having a hard time determining if it is fisheye or not. Anyway, all this is just due to my impatience in having time to get it to an expert... thanks for humoring me.



I suppose for now, its time to A) get it appraised, and revisit some B&M jewelers for some comparison to see if this is really what we want and I'll return with some solid info.

Edit: HAHA B ) turned into a man with sunglasses!

Edited by donedating, 25 October 2010 - 07:31 PM.

[davidelevi]

Get it appraised, then see what else you can buy for the amount you intend to pay. Don't start looking at other stones based on the cut/size/clarity/colour (whether appraised or lab-graded) of this one...

[donedating]

Heres an update, I know that I enjoy getting some closure on how things end up when reading forums like these:

Got it appraised some time ago: Came back as a 1.98 SI2 I Good Good Good, No Flour., 59% depth, 66.7% Table, thin to thick girdle, Small culet. He told me wholesale 9k, if he were selling it in the store with markup 10k, 15k for insurance with the setting.

Sent it to GIA, came back as an H, I1, fair cut, everything else the same pretty much. Was told that the value was approximately unchanged.

continued doing some reading, soul searching, and B&M visiting to decide my options. felt really uncomfortable with many of the B&Ms: Lots of them gave me explanations about things that conflicted with advice read in forums like this one. Felt somewhat at the mercy of the salesman both in terms of price and quality and what he presented me to look at from the room in the back. Regarding blue nile, I decided to heed the advice oft repeated here by the pros of " I would never buy a diamond i hadn't seen."

Long story short, I decided not to buy the stone from my dad. Found a jeweler that I trust through a family friend. Just put down a deposit for a G, SI1, 2, Ideal, No Flour, RB.

going over my initial budget of 10-12k, but trying to rationalize by dividing the the difference over 20 years.

thank you all for your advice. I feel like a seasoned vet compared to where I was 6 months ago. Now I'm the one giving advice to my friends.

Edited by donedating, 02 April 2011 - 06:15 PM.

[davidelevi]

Thanks for coming back. And please do come back at least once more with a photo of your (plural) ring. It sounds like a nice stone - which lab has graded it? I'm just intrigued by the word "ideal" in the description here...

BTW - I don't think anyone here (at least of the regulars) has ever quite advised not to buy from Blue Nile or another online dealer. What we have all said is to buy the stone, not the paper, meaning that seeing the stone trumps any report grade. Any decent online dealer puts you in the position to see the stone for yourself and return it with no risk other than shipping costs. If the dealer can go one step further, providing good quality photos and video, and/or uses technology such as GemEx, ASET, IdealScope, ISEE2, etc. to help the consumer make a choice, even better. But there is limited risk in buying online as long as one buys wisely.

Edited by davidelevi, 03 April 2011 - 02:25 AM.

[donedating]

It will be GIA, if "ideal" is not their ranking terminology, thats just a mistake on my part. excellent, ideal, signature ideal - all runs together after a night of reading the forums.

I haven't actually seen it yet myself as it will be procured in an upcoming trip to antwerp - eliminating a middleman importer. I am deferring to the jewelers expert opinion while overseas and trusting his judgement on value based on the guidelines listed above and our general conversations of what will look the best for my budget.GF wants something white and sparkly, and I want something relatively clean.

To reiterate the above, I am still buying sight-unseen, as the jeweler, also a GIA GG, is acting as my broker. I have veto power upon seeing it, but probably wont regardless if he says it is as good as it gets for my price point I will trust that-- I am ultimately deferring to the judgement of an expert I trust by virtue of being a family friend. Certainly he will know better what to look for than I, and the price will likely be better than anything I could get through a B&M, approaching those of blue nile (I hope!!!!).

Regarding your BTW- above: Perhaps I was speaking in absolutes when I should not have been, though perhaps "here" can be more loosely interpreted as both diamondreview and PS. and "pros" can be not pros at all but simply people with high post counts. certainly didnt mean to put words in your or others mouths.

As a comment on the various technologies available to help in the choice, all those are quite foreign to me and when I actually went in to one B&M he had one of these apparatuses - perhaps ideal scope, it was the one with the images with lots of red- and is telling me that what I am looking at in the scope meant it was good. Perhaps it was perhaps it wasnt, but giving me a tool and through which I have to take his word on what the patterns mean is little more useful than just taking his word for it without the tool. He was also trying to sell me on a H&A ( Only on the 3rd visit where he determined my price range) -- They were the most busted up hearts and arrows I had ever seen. GF didnt even know why they were called hearts and arrows until afterwards when I explained and showed pics of the real thing. Perhaps his tool had the opposite intent. EDIT:: the only hearts and arrows "I have ever seen" are through pictures here and PS. So perhaps I am biased.

Edited by donedating, 03 April 2011 - 06:49 AM.

[davidelevi]

Good post. And thank you for continuing the conversation.

On the technologies: you are absolutely right that unless one knows how to employ them, they are useless. Or even worse, since they put you at the mercy of those that claim they can... But if one learns how to read the diagrams or the images (like you have learned to read a grading report - and it's not just about the letters or the numbers, it's about their interpretation), they can be useful.

[denverappraiser]

I’m definitely with you that finding a trusted jeweler and relying on their expertise makes this a MUCH less painful process. The only thing I would question is your decision that using a jeweler with a Belgian address somehow makes them better (or at less expensive). US import taxes on loose diamonds is zero and shipping from Israel, India, Belgium, New York, or wherever it’s cut is so low that it’s nominal. $35 goes a remarkably long way with FedEx and location has next to nothing to do with it these days. It’s the character of the people behind the counter you should be looking for, not their address.

As a general rule, the most price competitive market in the world is the US Internet vendors for a variety of reasons. This includes Belgian and Indian dealers. I'm not against Antwerp dealers, there are some fine folks there, but your assumption that you is somehow 'cutting out the middleman' and can therefore expect better prices by going there is flatly false.

Edited by denverappraiser, 03 April 2011 - 02:37 PM.

[donedating]

denverappraiser, on 03 April 2011 - 02:34 PM, said:

As a general rule, the most price competitive market in the world is the US Internet vendors for a variety of reasons. This includes Belgian and Indian dealers. I'm not against Antwerp dealers, there are some fine folks there, but your assumption that you is somehow 'cutting out the middleman' and can therefore expect better prices by going there is flatly false.

To be clear, I am using an american jeweler who is taking a trip and meeting with [ I am not quite sure what the term would be - cutters? guys with vaults? people with large inventory? ] and he will have the opportunity to have a lot of stones pass before his eyes from which he can pick and choose.

I would have expected that for the same diamond to be imported to new york and then my jeweler buy it from the importer/wholesaler would imply two groups making a markup rather than one. flatly false is a surprise to my logic.

Not sure if by "us internet vendors" you mean the blue nile type or the many vendors on PS. Reading about the "gaming the system" makes me worry about what I would be getting over there and imo a few gaming apples casts the whole lot in a bad light. I suppose with bluenile i could order a few, have my guy assess, and then return most or all until i find what I want, but that would be more piecemeal than the current situation where he can compare many at a single time.

EDIT: perhaps you could write a bit on how the diamond importer/wholesaler market works, ie the various avenues through which jewelers get their stones (both high and low volume jewelers)? or perhaps a link?

Edited by donedating, 03 April 2011 - 05:27 PM.

[denverappraiser]

Sure. Here’s how it works with about 85% of the stones out there, especially with the ones you see listed in the gigantic lists online.

Most diamonds are manufactured in India by rather large companies. We're talking about outfits with thousands or even tens of thousands of employees. For example rosyblue.com and venusjewel.com. They sell them to the various jewelers throughout the world and will deliver through their own subsidiaries in the major markets including Belgium, US, Japan, China, etc. They’ll list the data for their stones in one of the large databases like diamonds.net or polygon.net. The big directories you see at places like blue nile or James Allen are taking a piece of this data feed and republishing it under their own name with their own markup and whatever value added products they want to include (if any). The database here and elsewhere consists of data that's uploaded by the individual dealers and is made up of whatever they are wishing to sell, and it's priced at however they wish to price it. A fair number of the stones are owned by a third party and the seller is just acting as a sales agent. They don't own it and they don't have it in their posession. That’s why it’s so common to see the very same stone listed by several different dealers. If a customer picks one, they order in the stone, ship it, take their cut and pay the original vendor for the goods. Everybody goes away happy. Sometimes they can even arrange a dropshipping directly from the vendors vault. This is basically the same thing the B&M stores do but usually the local stores don’t get the money until they order in the stone and make the sales presentation. If the sale doesn’t fly, THEY get to eat the shipping, insurance and similar costs. The dealers involved are VERY savvy folks and they’ll pass the stone to Japan, Canada, Belgium or wherever in order to gain a few percent advantage. That's why location doesn't make nearly as much difference as you're imagining.

By a big margin, India is the biggest cutting center for diamonds followed by China, Israel, Belgium and the US although there are operations in nearly every country including increasingly in Africa. The dominance of Antwerp in the cutting business is ancient history along with the US dominance of the TV business, and largely for the same reason.

Data about the stones including the various stats, photographs, certificate scans et.al. fly around the world for free via the Internet and the stones themselves fly around for nominal costs via FedEx. A stone in the US, say Denver or New York, can be sold to a client in India or visa versa in a way that’s completely transparent to the end buyer and can be delivered in 2 days for a nominal fee and usually zero tax. It may very well be cut in India, owned by an investor in Israel, located in New York and sold by a dealer in Belgium, all at the same time.

This is not all bad. Those ‘middlemen’ offer a valuable service to the manufacturers and usually will do it for less than it would cost to do it themselves. They are much better at catering to the vagaries of the different markets so a manufacturer can have a worldwide reach whouth the headaches that come with a worldwide staff. That’s why they do it this way. It’s the same reason that most manufacturers of everything from cars to shoes to software sell through a dealer network.

Edited by denverappraiser, 04 April 2011 - 05:11 AM.

[donedating]

time to close the saga. the trip to antwerp flubbed. he found a triple x i 1.7 for 16.4 (my budget was 20) i was hoping for something bigger and whiter. apparently all these white size range of stones are being snapped up by chinese and indians middle class and driving the price up. he told me he thought he could do better at home in the us, where the coming surge in prices hadnt hit yet.

so upon his return he had some stones sent in from a friend in ny and i had 3 to look at. all ~17.5. I ended up picking a 1.84 SI1 g vg vg vg. i also was looking at a 1.72 h ex vg vg vs2. but side by side, i could see the size difference, i could see the color difference, but i couldnt see any difference in sparkliness, either in the store or in daylight. both were clean of visible inclusions. the jeweler agreed that he couldnt tell why the si1 was not a vs2 and surmised it was right on the cusp. so i got the bigger whiter one.

inspecting my cert it says cut grade affected by brillianteering. wtf... i hadnt noticed this on the cert in the store. i was too googly eyed. doing some online searching, i find that it could either enhance or degrade the appearance depending on painting or digging and the extent to which its done.... i have no idea. Supposedly done to boost the weight? well that defeats the purpose...gah. anyway, i take solace in knowing that while i dont have complete knowledge, i picked the option that was prettier to me without knowing all this other stuff.

so now its mounted and on her finger. hooray for wedding planning, between her and her mom that is.

part of my ego still wishes it was a triple x. i am kind of obsessive and competitive about these things and in about 10 years we will be in a demographic where this size stone is middle of the road. but i just couldnt see the difference between the ex cut and the vg cut, so im thinking maybe the only difference was the brillianteering? and maybe this enhanced the appearance?

also table is kind of small. 54%.


Round Brilliant
Measurements:7.80 - 7.85 x 4.89 mm
Carat Weight:1.82 carat Color Grade: G Clarity Grade: SI1Cut Grade: Very Good
Proportions:
Depth: 62.5%Table:54% Crown Angle: 36.0° Crown Height: 16.5% Pavilion Angle: 41.0° Pavilion Depth: 43.5% Star length: 55% Lower Half: 75% Girdle: Thin to Medium, Faceted Culet:None
Finish:
Polish: Very Good Symmetry: Very GoodFluorescence:None Comments: Clouds are not shown.

Edited by donedating, 28 May 2011 - 05:01 AM.

[denverappraiser]

Buy what you like. There's no one on the planet who can tell the difference between a VG and an X cut without tools, especially when the difference is as subtle as brillianteering so in terms of the competition with your friends and coworkers it will have no effect at all unless you're inclined to talk about pedigree. If the one you love the best is a VG (or even F or G for that matter) and that results in a discount, that's not only not a problem, it's a feature.

It's true that consumers in China and India are have an affect on the demand but it's not correct to say that the US is somehow isolated. We're STILL the biggest market in the world by a healthy margin and the difference between having your stone located in Antwerp, Mumbai, NYC or Denver is a matter of a $35 FedEx fee. Things move around very quickly and to where the consumers pay the best prices for that kind of goods and it's a seriously global marketplace. It has been for years, decades even. The reason that prices tend to be cheaper here has to do with the efficiency of the advertising/payment/shipping/legal systems more than anything else but, in general, the cheapest place to buy a particular diamond is by aggressive shopping with the US Internet vendors. This is true even for customers in China, India or Belgium.

[LaurieH]

I agree about the foreign competition/price stuff, but overall--yay! congrats on finding something you both loved the look of (and let it go...you don't wear the cert, so considering it's big, and sparkly and bright--the rest is semantics now ) and good luck with all the wedding planning that you don't have to participate in hehe

[davidelevi]

One of the goals of the GIA cut grade is to rate the beauty of the diamond but also its visual size relative to the weight. There's two reasons why brillianteering is used - one is to retain weight, the other is to get some specific visual effects. GIA's FacetWare cut estimator switches from Excellent to Very Good with a moderate amount of brillianteering (https://www.gia.edu/facetware/), but without a scan to tell us what the brillianteering is doing on your stone is tough to say what its impact is. I'd like to think that the VG is an "automatic" thing on the GIA grade, given that the diameter of your stone is perfectly reasonable for its weight.

The table isn't small. It is perfect for my taste. And so is the high crown. And as Neil said, if you can get this at a lower price because it comes with a lower grade, so much the better. And your competitive ego can rest on the conscience that not only you have "top of the line" Excellent looks, but that you got them at a lower price.

Re: the demographics. In 10 years, presumably you will be able to afford whatever the Joneses have and better. Don't worry about it. Plenty of diamonds in stores and in the ground.