Q&A: On the Hunt for a $15K Princess Cut

Love the site! I found it helpful a couple years ago when I was searching for info about earrings and now I’m back looking for help with a ring. Thanks for the great info.

Essentially, I have four questions. I apologize in advance for their length.

#1) Do you have any recommendations for a diamond with a budget of ~$15k (or less), princess cut, carat range of 1.6 to 1.8 (though I could be convinced to go down to 1.5), to be placed in a platinum setting?

#2) I’ve been looking around both online and in physical stores and haven’t actually seen as clear of a difference in price levels between online and physical as I expected. One thing I’ve noticed though is that it’s pretty hard to actually compare given the wide variation in prices for seemingly very subtle differences in diamonds. Here’s an example to explain the issue. I found what I think is a decent diamond at a physical store (Robbins Brothers) with the following specs: 1.74 ct, VS2, G, inclusions not readily apparent to the naked eyed, for ~$14,950; and when I look at diamonds in this range on Blue Nile, I see a 1.75 ct, VS2, G, Very Good cut for $15,195 (Blue Nile LD02606554) and a 1.73 ct, VS1, I, Very Good cut for $11,577 (Blue Nile LD02750295). Based on those data points, the diamond at Robbins Brothers seems like it could be either a good deal or a bad deal. Any thoughts?

#3) Is there typically a big price drop when you go from G to I in color? I can’t seem to get physical stores to show me I color diamonds, I presume they want to keep it G and above to keep the price up. Also, in addition to the two Blue Nile diamonds I mentioned above in #2 (one was a G, one was an I), here’s another example of a big drop from G to I: $13,957 for 1.62 ct, VVS1, I, Sig Ideal cut (Blue Nile LD02890280) vs. $16,379 for this 1.62 ct, VS1, G, Sig Ideal cut (Blue Nile LD02295763). Also, for what it’s worth, when I looked at the GIA reports for these diamonds, the reference diagram/map of inclusions for the cheaper diamond actually looks a lot better to me than that of the more expense diamond. Is G vs. I color that big of a deal? Based what you say on this site I didn’t think it was.

#4) I was looking around on Brian Gavin and was only able to find 5 diamonds greater than 1.3 ct. Does Brian Gavin primarily only do smaller diamonds? For what it’s worth, I did email their customer service and receive some info on six 1.67-1.75 ct diamonds that weren’t listed on the site. However, it seems hard to make a decision on them because the email didn’t include pictures or GIA reports.

Thanks so much for your help!

Thanks for the response. Interesting bio, hope you’re enjoying Brno. The closest I have been to there is Salzburg, Austria and Zagreb, Croatia, but I’ve heard good things generally about the Czech Republic.

See below for responses to your followup.

1) I am looking at a platinum, split shank setting with sidestones/pave. I think I’ll probably either go with the exact setting shown at this link or something highly similar: http://www.michaelmcollection.com/Engagement-rings/Amore/default.asp?Style=R458&offset=6.

2) The Robbins Bros diamonds were at least certified by IGI, I am not sure about GIA though. I emailed the customer service rep who has been working with me yesterday asking whether the 1.74ct diamond I mentioned was GIA certified, but have not heard back yet. I will let you know if I hear something from her.

Looking forward to your suggestions.

…….

Just wanted to let you know that I heard back from Robbins Bros today and the diamond is not certified by GIA. I did at least get the IGI report # though, it’s GGT1116107. I have also attached the summary stats that you can pull from IGI’s website using that number. Based on my understanding of the info on your site, the table diameter size of 73% may indicate some degree of weakness in the cut, but these stats probably reveal more to you than they do to me. Let me know if this changes your thinking at all.

Thanks Mike, this is helpful. Four followup questions.

1) Would you consider these diamonds to be eye clean? I’m able to spot a few inclusions in all of them in their pictures, even without using the loupe, but not sure how zoomed in the default pictures already are versus what the naked eye would see.

2) Which of these would you expect to look the brightest? The picture of the 1.68ct seems to have more white and less black than the pictures of the 1.70ct and 1.83ct, and the 1.83ct diamond appears to have larger shapes/facets than the other two. Any thoughts on that?

3) When you say that the 1.83ct has a better cut, are you basing that on the L/W ratio? Since all the diamonds you linked me to are “ideal cuts” just curious what criteria you went by to pick the 1.83ct one as the best.

4) Finally, I assume the diamond you linked me to are your recommendations for me, right? Not just examples to illustrate a point about the IGI certification.

What do you think about this diamond? Is it eye clean? I have it on hold, so the price isn’t showing but it $14,700. The zoomed-out picture looks pretty good, but there are a few cloudy spots under the loupe.

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/H-VS1-Very-Good-Cut-Princess-Diamond-1542253.asp

Hey Mike. Sorry to hear about your flu, hope you feeling better now. I would still appreciate help if you don’t mind. I liked your suggestions from a few weeks ago, but I ended up being delayed a bit on making a purchase, so now I’m back on the hunt again.

Was curious about your opinion on the diamonds below. Also open to any other suggestions you may have.

 https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/I-VVS2-Very-Good-Cut-Princess-Diamond-1508809.asp

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/H-VS1-Very-Good-Cut-Princess-Diamond-1542253.asp

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/I-VS1-Ideal-Cut-Princess-Diamond-1489388.asp

Thanks so much Mike. I am going to get this diamond and was planning on going with a pave setting, so its exciting to hear that this diamond will match well with that. As a last question, do you know anything about the custom setting work by James Allen? They have made a pretty good offer on making the custom setting I want too.