Q&A: Looking for 1.25+ Carat Round Brilliant Diamond for Between $6000 and $8000 Dollars

Thanks for writing. Before I send you any suggestions, I just have a couple questions: 1) What kind of setting will this go in? I’m assuming white gold/platinum, but what about side stones? Will there be any? If you had a specific ring in mind, could you please send me a link? 2) You didn’t mention shape, so I’m assuming that means you want a round stone. If that’s not correct, please let me know!

Just to fill you in – I asked about the setting because if there were going to be side-stones I would have needed to know what color they were to match the center stone to.  Since there aren’t any, it gives us flexibility to go down to an I or J color with confidence that it won’t look less-white than any side stones.  J colors only really look off-white when they’re next to higher color diamonds.  When viewed by themselves, you’d be hard pressed to say it doesn’t look white.

I’m going to go look for some stones for you now.  In the meantime, would you mind please browsing James Allen’s solitaire ring settings here: https://www.jamesallen.com/engagement-rings/solitaire-rings/

I am going to send you selections from James Allen since they’re the only online vendor who offers real magnified photos of their inventory.  I can’t in good faith recommend anything lower than a VS1 from the other vendors (such as Blue Nile) since there’s always the possibility that the stone will not be eye clean.  With my experience, I can tell from the James Allen magnified photo if the stone will be clean to the naked eye or not.

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Ok, here are my picks:

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/G-SI2-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1260083.asp – 1.34 G SI2 triple excellent GIA certified ideal cut.  $6920. The picture is a bit blurry, but I can see that the SI2 is all on the side and coverable with a prong (about 10 o’clock).

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/I-SI1-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1256473.asp – 1.53 I SI1 triple excellent GIA ideal cut.  I color combined with medium blue is great since it’ll make the I color look a grade or two higher in color.  Picture looks great.  A few small inclusions around the girdle won’t be noticeable to the naked eye. $7520

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/H-SI2-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1263581.asp – 1.50 H SI2 GIA excellent cut ideal (the VG grade for symmetry doesn’t mean anything tangible).  Great looking stone.  That little bit of hazy inclusion in the center will be totally clean to your naked eye.  $7,710

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/H-SI2-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1253895.asp – 1.51 H SI2 GIA excellent cut ideal (same as above, VG for symmetry doesn’t mean anything).  Probably the cleanest pic of all of the above.  $8190.

Take a look at these and let me know what you think.

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Hey M.  I hadn’t heard from you in a few days.  I was just curious to hear if you ended up buying any of my suggestions.  I’d love to hear how it went!

A nicely made J color will not look “yellow” face up.  The analogy I like to use to explain it is diamonds are like teeth.  There are people who have noticeably yellow teeth.  Those are more like K color and down.

There are people with ridiculously white teeth.  The kind of teeth when they smile, you are startled by how white their teeth are.  That’s like D, E, F color diamonds (more D, E, than F, though).

Then there are the rest of us who have just plain old white teeth.  That’s G-J.  You would never look at a J color diamond and say it’s yellow, but it’s certainly not “as white” as a D color diamond.  But that’s the beauty of it — you never really notice that the teeth on the guy who has just “regular” white teeth aren’t as white as possible until he’s standing next to a guy with D color teeth.  You just look at his teeth and say “hey, those look white to me!”

So unless you compare a J color diamond next to a D/E color diamond, you’re not going to ever really see and appreciate the difference.

Also, if you can find a J color diamond with medium blue fluorescence, (and in most cases, strong blue fluorescence) it can make the stone look whiter.

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My pleasure to help.  Here’s what I found:

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/I-I1-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1235748.asp – You probably weren’t considering an I1, but this might work nicely for you.  The inclusions are all on the side.  A big chunk of what’s there could probably be covered with a prong.  You might want to have JA’s customer service pull this one for you and give you their face-to-face opinion.  My perspective is limited by the picture, so they’ll be able to give you better input.  But from my end, it looks like a great choice.

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/I-SI2-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1259391.asp – Again, pics a bit fuzzy, so probably good to confirm it with JA’s customer service.

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/I-SI2-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1259915.asp

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/I-SI2-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1267146.asp

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/I-VS2-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1265827.asp – seems really cheap for a VS2

https://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/H-SI2-Premium-Cut-Round-Diamond-1256531.asp – Wanted to get at least one H color in there.

Have a look at these selections and let me know what you think.  I look forward to your response!

I’m glad you liked the list.  Anything I would say about the stone is total speculation.  I wrote the following recently to another reader.  I think it addresses your question:

For every price level, JA has a fixed profit margin.  So for $5000 stones, they might make 16%, for 30,000 stones, they might make 7%, and so on. They don’t differentiate between qualities.  It’s all based on price.  The important thing to remember is that in reality, JA doesn’t set their prices.  Their vendors do.  If a vendor wants to move a stone that’s been around a while, he’ll lower the price he has it listed with JA at.  JA probably works with 20 or so vendors in NYC, so 20 different vendors can greatly vary their pricing.  JA just decides how much profit to make on top of those prices.

I can tell you that the little bit of brown is just an artifact from the lighting used to photograph the stone.  The stone will not look brown.

In addition to pulling the cert, you should ask them to pull the stone and inspect it for you just to be sure.  There’s no substitute for seeing a diamond with a trained pair of eyes.  The pics on JA are great, but it’s definitely limited.

My pleasure!  Please let me know what the guys from JA say about this stone.  If you want to send me the cert copy to have a look, I’d be happy to check that for you as well.

The cert looks really solid, and the pic I think is the same pic as before.  I’d say go for it before someone else does.  It’s happened to people I’ve been helping many times that diamonds get bought out from underneath them.

None whatsoever.  I’ve looked at at least several hundred thousand stones in my career and I could never acurately tell the difference.

My great pleasure!  Do you use facebook?  Would you mind becoming a fan of the new page I set up for the website?

https://www.facebook.com/TheDiamondPro/

Please stay in touch and let me know how the ring looks when you get it!

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Did you receive the ring yet?  What did you think?

Very nice!  Good luck! Let me know how it goes on Friday!

Wow.  That’s so wonderful to hear!  I’m so happy I was able to help.  Thank you for thinking of me and remembering to fill me in.   Now that the secret’s out, would you mind doing me a huge favor and leaving me feedback on ivouch?  The website is still fairly new (I only launched this past summer) and testimonials really help build my credibility.  I would really appreciate it.  Here’s a direct link you can use to get straight there:

(Link Removed)

Also, stop by and become a “fan” of the website on facebook.  I’m pretty sure I”m going to start having some kind of monthly jewelry giveaway where I give some piece of jewelry at random to someone who posts something on the fan page about their experience with me and the site.

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Wow.  You blew me away with that one. (you can view the review here: http://www.ivouch.com/diamonds-pro/this-is-where-you-get-good-advice-on-what-not-to-spend-money-2 – Ira) I truly appreciate it.

I wish you and your fiance a long life together filled with health, happiness, and love.

If you’re ever in Israel, please look me up!