For You Gemologists

No gemologist, but it's also more what the women prefer. I know color, clarity and cut are all HUGE factors in having a girl cream her pants. All of my girl friends and girls I talk to at work are the most adimate about the color and clarity though.

 

I'm no expert, but you should decide what is more important to you/her and that will help you with your selection process.

For example, my better half wanted the diamonds to bling! So we went with a round with a depth of about 60-61 and a table of about 55-56% and a white gold setting.

We also blindly compared non hearts and arrows, hearts and arrows and Hearts On Fire. Ever single time the Hearts On Fire was much more blingy. Many people think the whole hearts thing is subjective but we took the taste test and HOF won every time!

Overall, it's really important to educate yourself and look at a lot of diamonds. Grading is very subjective. For example, I found a feather in a diamond that was AGSL (supposedly the most stringent) graded and wasn't even on the sheet. I asked the manager what they will do with the diamond (after the manger and the onsite gem-dude looked at it to verify) and he said, "sell it to someone else".

So, what's important to her and you?

 

Size. Women seem to bring this subject up in other ways too.

I will NEVER marry/sign the marriage contract.. but I know this much about a woman's engagement ring; Inside her social circle, it is a status symbol to have one up over the other girls. I don't understand how it translates, but the bigger the stone, the more it is perceived how much you love her.

 

I think the size of the diamond is like guys bragging about their size???

The funny thing is, it still is us who got it.

 

I'm not an expert, but I've been told that the cut makes a huge difference in the appearance (sparkle) of the diamond. The guy I talked with ranked cut highest on his personal priority list, FWIW.

 

Get the largest, clearest, best-shaped diamond in which the human eye cannot detect imperfection. IMO this means a l:w ratio not exceeding 1.04-1.05, color G/H or better and VS1 or better. Everything I researched said AGI was the only way to go.

Let's face it, if your wife's friends are running around with firescopes and loops they have issues.

 

You will NOT believe this place! I found it thru another site one day and could not believe that people could talk so much about this subject;

http://www.pricescope.com/idealbb/

Whether it costs a million or came out of a cracker jack box on your first day together, it seems to me, more than any other item, to fit into the "Its the thought that counts" category.

 

By definition an SI stone needs a look to see the inclusions...don't count them out. SI is slight inclusions...need a 10X loop to see them, not the pepper sized carbon chunks that you see in some stones. VS is very slight inclusions (need more than 10 seconds to see the inclusions under a 10X loop). I bought a G SI1 stone as I thought why buy a VVS stone when the SI1 looks exactly the same to the naked eye.

I bought up on color and down a bit on clarity. I had the stone set in platnium, if you are planning on yellow gold the metal is a bit more forgiving than a white metal as far as color of the stone goes.

Dimensions are important too as they are what give the stone that fire...'bling' as someone said earlier.

 

Depth and table are the most important factor for fire/sparkle, etc. If you cannot get the light to reflect straight out of the diamond, it's all over.

 

From the perspective of a girl, and a person who made it almost through Gemology school (finished diamonds, diamond grading, colored stones and just got bored and sidetracked at colored stone grading) I would say get one that looks pretty. I know that sounds lame, but figure this, if it is really sparkly, the cut has to be pretty good (number one priority) If it dosen't look yellow, the color has to be pretty good. If it is sparkly then it can't have too many inclusions.

What I would choose:
1. excellent cut
2. G or better color
3. SI1 or better clarity

Don't get too bent out of shape on super high clarity. If you can't see the difference, why pay the difference?