Q&A: Looking for Ideal Cut Round Diamond in $3K Range

First off, I’d like to thank you for your site, your diamond education articles have been integral in guiding my search for the perfect diamond for my budget.

My total budget is about $3500-4000, and I’m looking at settings between $575 and $1050 (for color purposes, I want to note I’m going with a platinum solitaire), so a diamond in the range of $2500-3500 seems about right. I’m looking for a round, H-J color, eye-clean VS2-I1. The cut is important to me though, so I’m willing to take the size hit by ruling out cuts below excellent. I’m astounded at times the diamonds you’ve come up with in the Q&A’s, and I don’t want to miss on something special because it’s somewhat past my budget, so if the value is there I can stretch things by a few hundred. A recommendation on the lower and higher end may help break my indecisiveness streak.

To give an idea of what my eye-in-training is gravitating towards, and to get your opinion, a few links:

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/J-VS2-Excellent-Cut-Round-Diamond-1513664.asp (pin-spot in center, but otherwise seems great and maybe it won’t be that noticeable?)

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/J-VS2-Excellent-Cut-Round-Diamond-1518671.asp

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/I-VS2-Excellent-Cut-Round-Diamond-1513969.asp

Also, is there something I’m missing with the diamond below? It looks phenomenal, I can’t find the occlusion with the Virtual Loupe, and isn’t much more than comparably-sized SI’s I’ve seen that look much worse:

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/J-VS2-Excellent-Cut-Round-Diamond-1522142.asp

Thank you so much in advance, and sorry for the length of this message!

Thank you very much for the reply, and sorry for taking so long to respond. I’ve done some more searching, including venturing into “very good” cuts. I’m probably looking at something at 0.90 carats, but am unsettled on where I should be setting my price at. I’m confident I have narrowed things down to 4 diamonds that occupy 3 price ranges (2 in the middle), that I would love your take on.

The top of my choices at just over $4k: https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/J-VS2-Excellent-Cut-Round-Diamond-1522143.asp

Not much I can see wrong with it. Even better, I can manage to make it to 0.92 if I went with this.

My two ~$3600 choices:

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/J-SI1-Excellent-Cut-Round-Diamond-1520243.asp

Looks very clean for a SI1, but seems to have a certain fuzziness in the picture that I can’t tell if it’s because of the photography or the diamond itself. If it’s the diamond, I’d pass immediately, but otherwise it might be the best pick here.

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/J-SI1-Very-Good-Cut-Round-Diamond-1512206.asp

Seems like a prongable occlusion at 1:30, but the business with the star facet at 10 o’clock worries me a bit. Would that be eye-clean?

Finally, our “upset special” at $3120, that perhaps I could use some explanation on, is: https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/J-VS2-Very-Good-Cut-Round-Diamond-1525501.asp

I can see the table is peculiarly large at 63.0%, and it seems like the upper girdle facets pay the price by being very small. But of the few diamonds occupying the low $3k’s, this is the only one that looks normal and is free of any glaring occlusions. That said, not having the diamond in front of me, my mind turns to how the dimensions of this diamond might affect light return. I want the diamond I pick it to have good fire, so if that sort of thing is in doubt when going with a diamond such as this, then I would have no regrets in passing on it.

Thank you again for your help, Michael. I eagerly await your reply.

Understood, thank you for setting me straight on those. I’m strongly considering the 0.92 and don’t want to lose out on it, so this will be my last reply before pulling the trigger.

Looking at pictures of finished rings, I’m less certain about my previously stated ~0.90 requirement. I decided on a $1050 setting (handmade six-prong knife-edge solitaire in platinum), so I’m really pushing things with a $4k diamond, so I started looking at 0.80’s again. Two 0.92’s, two 0.80’s. A short take on each irrespective of price is all I think I’ll need.

0.80’s:

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/J-SI1-Excellent-Cut-Round-Diamond-1515184.asp

I think the 2 O’clock occlusion is prongable, the question is whether it would be eye-clean with the schmutz at 9 o’clock.

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/J-SI1-Excellent-Cut-Round-Diamond-1518532.asp

I’m thinking the scratch-type occlusions in the northern region would not be entirely eye-clean, but I just wanted to make sure before writing off what otherwise seems like a very nice diamond.

0.92’s:

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/J-VS2-Excellent-Cut-Round-Diamond-1522143.asp

This is the one you liked from earlier, just linking it again so you don’t have to scroll down to the previous e-mail.

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/J-VS2-Very-Good-Cut-Round-Diamond-1526403.asp

Occlusion-wise it seems like a prongable(?) occlusion at 10 O’clock and the stuff in the very center. Obviously, if that isn’t eye-clean then I won’t be considering it. Also, the depth seems quite large at 64.3%, don’t know how that might affect things.

Thank you so much again for your help, Michael. I eagerly await your reply.

I took a little too much time debating things and missed out on the two I was considering. I’m moving away from breaking my budget for the 0.90’s and focusing on getting the best diamond I can in the general $2500 range. Anything you can find wrong with this diamond? It seems like a nice value, especially for a VS1 (which wasn’t part of my criteria, I was pretty much looking exclusively at VS2 and lower before tripping upon this one):

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/J-VS1-Excellent-Cut-Round-Diamond-1520391.asp

Thanks again!

That’s great! I put in the order, and I’ll go in to my bank Monday to do the wire to James Allen. My last question…does the tint of that diamond worry you at all? Like, from the picture it looks yellower than some K’s, but obviously my assumption and hope is that it’s simply the photography and not the diamond itself. I haven’t been on James Allen long enough to know if judging color by the images is a good or bad idea. The only other one that I found that I was considering was this: https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/I-SI2-Excellent-Cut-Round-Diamond-1500692.asp

But, while it looks pretty good for an SI2, it’s hard to argue in favor of paying more for a diamond that’s 3 grades lower in clarity for a 1 grade boost in color. So yeah, if my concern on color is unfounded, then I’ll go and make this final tomorrow. Thanks so much!