4 replies to this topic

[sille714]

Hi, I'm new here and was doing research on the reputation of Blue Nile. I have been shopping for a ring for the last few years and am going to be purchasing in the next month.

While viewing the forum has put my mind to ease about purchasing a diamond from Blue Nile and not being scammed, I was wondering what the issue is with the Blue Nile cut grading system.

I could not find any specific information on this. Sorry if this is a re-post.

[barry]

Not sure what you're alluding by "issue". Have you asked them? They probably have the best insight into their own system.

[sille714]

Sorry if I was not clear, I don't have an issue with the cut grading system or their website operation. However, I have seen comments on this site saying that Blue Nile's cut grading system is unreliable and "crap" (not the network/infrastructure but their policy). I wanted to know what specific issues commentators had with the cut grading system/policy.

[denverappraiser]

They assign a cut grade to stones that they haven't seen and for which all the information they have to work with is the reported values from their suppliers for the max and min diameter, table size and total depth. Whether or not this is useful is up to you but the vast majority of people doing grading these days use a significantly more detailed approach. Most graders will not assign a grade to a stone they haven't seen for obvious reasons. There is not a generally accepted way to grade the cutting of stones so with ANY grader it's important to understand their methodology and scales or you don't have much in the way of useable information.

Edited by denverappraiser, 14 February 2012 - 03:48 PM.

[Liz]

Because we do not know what Blue Nile determines a "very good" "ideal" or "signature ideal" cut parameters to be, you will need to be somewhat well versed in what you are looking for in a diamond's cut proportions in order to make an educated decision.

What sort of diamond did you have in mind?