Recently a dear friend of mine lost her diamond engagement ring and had to file a claim with her insurance company. The insurance adjuster told her she needed to go to one of three stores (local to where she is living) and that they would help her replace her diamond engagement ring. Unfortunately, deBebians.com is not one of those stores so I was only able to assist her through the process by basically consulting her on the diamond options.
The first loose diamond she fell in love with was a 2.01ct H color SI1 GIA certified oval diamond. My friend called me and was thrilled…over the moon! I asked my friend to send me the GIA report number so I could look over the diamond specs. After all, the sales rep at the store apparently never discussed depth %, table %, polish, symmetry, etc. She said the saleswoman reassured her that their store only sells very good to excellent cut diamonds. Did she bother to tell my friend that only round brilliant cut diamonds are actually graded for cut by the GIA? No, she did not.
As I examined the GIA report, a few things stood out to me. First, the depth % of the diamond was 53.5%. A diamond expert (as her business card says she is) should know that this is quite shallow for an oval brilliant diamond. Check for yourself here at Pricescope.com. You can see that a 53.5% depth falls into the US domestic average cut. Average… did the rep say ‘average’? No, she said they only sell very good to excellent cut diamonds. Hmmm…. Now let’s look at the table percentage which was 51%. According again to Pricescope, a 51% table on an oval diamond falls into the International fine trade cut. I even looked for myself on a few other sites that sell loose diamonds. On one site, I saw that according to them, this diamond would fall into a good cut grade.
I guess my problem is that my friend was basically misled. In my opinion, this jewelry sales associate should have gone over the GIA report with this client and explained what everything meant… depth, table, polish, symmetry etc. I find that this can get brushed over sometimes because the client is in the moment or perhaps doesn’t know what questions to ask. It is so important to be 100% about your purchase. Would you buy a car by just looking at the design and color? No! You want to know the miles per gallon, does it need expensive gas, you know, basically the details. You also need to read a reliable consumer report on this car and see how it compares to other cars. This is the same with buying a diamond. You need to look at the details and know how this diamond compares to other available diamonds on the market.
