How to buy diamond engagement rings,
loose diamonds, wedding rings
Diamond Engagement Ring BargainWatch:
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How to buy diamond engagement rings, loose diamonds, wedding rings |
Diamond Engagement Ring BargainWatch: |
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Engagement Ring Buying Tips Wedding Planning: First Steps Wedding Books & Planners Wedding Software Bridal Magazines Wedding Invitations Bride Name Change Kit Wedding Dress Tips & Scams Gift Registry Advice Bridal Registry Tips & Scams Online Gift Registry Guide Bridal Shower Ideas How To Choose Your Wedding Cakes & Toppers Grooms Cake Photos Wedding Photographer Videographer Wedding Florist Disc Jockey Limousine Service Honeymoon Trip Reports Sandals St. Lucia Atlantis Resort, Bahamas Sandals Royal Bahamian Fontainebleau Hilton Resort
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Diamond Ring Bargains For November, 2004Blue Nile is offering our BridalTips.com
visitors $100 off
diamond ring purchases of
$1,000 or more during November. Use this
Link To Their $100
Off Diamonds
Promotion Code. |
For Christmas diamond and jewelry shopping, don't
wait until deadlines, buy now while it's in stock, don't risk missing cutoff
dates.
You'll know more on buying diamond rings than salespeople.
View our Diamond
Deals Database, visitors email us specs and pricing of engagement ring diamonds purchased after
reading this diamond ring buyers guide.
Canadians often ask me
where to buy diamond rings.
Blue Nile Diamonds
ships
loose
diamonds & wedding rings to
Canada, for our friends to the North!
Don't concern yourself with touchy feely aspects of diamond engagement ring buying. You wouldn't know a good loose diamond in your hand anyway. It is safe to buy diamond engagement rings, diamond wedding rings, and diamond jewelry online. We buy our $3000 Dell computers unseen, you know it's a Pentium, how much RAM, which DVD drive, yet you never tried their computer first, right? Same with buying diamonds online, where diamond stores list the GIA grading report, you know what you are getting, no need to hold and hug your diamond before you buy. We researched better Discount diamond stores, we have frequent conference calls with them, they are safe. Online diamond ring prices are equivalent to wholesale prices that you can't get at many mall jewelry stores. Most ship FedEx overnight, and have 30 day money back guarantees. I bought my $4,300 Meade 12" GPS Telescope sight unseen, and had no problems. Use the major sites that we review and you'll have no worries.
The best diamond ring book we've seen is Diamond Ring Buying Guide, with photos of loose diamond cuts & shapes, clarity enhanced diamonds, diamond colors show you shades of yellow, and treated diamonds, how to judge loose diamond cut. Color photos show you good and bad cuts, tips on buying diamond wedding rings. There's color photos of inclusions, cracks, clouds, bubbles and photos of clarity grades I3 on up. Two other diamond engagement ring books:
Don't rely on salespeople to tell you what diamond rings are worth. Verify the diamond engagement ring quality with your own eyes, wary of common diamond ring jewelry scams. We're not here to trash jewelers. Like any business, there's bad apples.
On our other site CarBuyingTips.Com, I talk about bringing "the folder" to the dealer. When dealers see you did your homework, the deal proceeds on your terms. Do the same when buying engagement ring diamonds. Once jewelers see your diamond buying book, they'll know you're an informed diamond ring buyer. They cannot scam you. Read the diamond buying books we recommend, and you'll save $2000 in the end.
The consensus among girls is that diamond engagement rings should be one carat. Engagement ring diamond prices per carat jump after 1 carat, so diamond cutters whose stones are .99 carat instead 1.0 carat are scolded. Some prefer a 1.05 ct loose diamond of lesser quality than a 0.95 carat loose diamond. Everyone has formulas for how much you should spend on diamond engagement rings. Use the useful Recently Purchased Diamonds at Blue Nile tool. I send lots of guys there to see what others are buying. Here's my formula:
Any diamond jewelry salesperson making you think otherwise is a bottom dwelling scum sucker. Treat it like the diamond ring deal that it is and negotiate a bargain. You are asking her to spend the rest of her life with you, that's the gauge of your love. Don't let any salesperson "Jedi mind trick" you.
It's not relevant, jewelers easily resize diamond rings later. You can get one of her rings when she's not looking and have it sized. Discount diamond engagement ring buying sites such as Blue Nile, will resize the ring for you after you give it to her.
Reviews Of diamond engagement ring buying sitesBuy your diamond ring online and save thousands with lower prices and no sales tax. Better stores stock GIA or AGS certified diamonds. Read all returns policies BEFORE you buy, you want 30 day returns. When you buy diamond engagement rings online, they ship it FedEX. If your diamond ring appraises low (it wont), you can return it. Our visitors report online diamonds appraised at double their purchase price. |
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Blue Nile Diamonds is the largest online retailer of certified diamonds and fine jewelry, ranked Forbes Favorite Online Jeweler, and awarded BizRate's Circle Of Excellence Platinum Award for customer satisfaction. They are the best site to buy diamond engagement rings for their outstanding quality, service and value.
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Favorite part: No sales tax outside NY. In a rush? Express Diamonds in stock, ready to ship in 24 hours. |
Many honest online diamond ring sites will give you a great deal. Most of the crime is consumers buying diamond rings with stolen credit cards. Many visitors email us with great success buying their diamond wedding rings from online diamond stores. Your credit card is safe and encrypted. At restaurants your credit card imprints end up in the dumpster for crooks to steal. Honest diamond ring sites make you feel at home, and you can buy engagement ring diamonds online safely.
Synthetic Moissanite diamonds (silicon carbide) gained widespread use in 1999. These fake diamonds are so good that standard diamond jeweler thermal conduction testers cannot detect them! Moissanite diamond rings sell for nearly as much as real loose diamonds, further confusing diamond engagement ring buyers. According to the Diamond Ring Buying Guide, when you look through a 10x loupe, if you see double diamond facets or a doubled diamond table reflection, it is a Moissanite synthetic diamond.
Recommended Diamond Ring Buying Books
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Two organizations in the U.S. protect us consumers, provide diamond industry ethics, and promote strict standards used to grade loose diamonds. The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) and the American Gem Society (AGS) labs do not appraise diamond engagement rings, they grade loose diamonds. Internationally, International Gemological Institute (IGI) produces diamond grading reports, appraises diamond engagement rings. Most jewelry experts and diamond industry insiders we spoke to prefer GIA and AGS, with reputations for strict grading parameters. Another lab, European Gemological Laboratories (EGL), is unknown to most U.S. consumers. They created controversy with some jewelry industry people, adding a clarity level SI3, which jewelers have told us should be the lesser I1. This potentially allows a diamond that should be an inferior I1 to sell for more as an EGL SI3. Some jewelers view this as less strict than GIA, preferring to only sell GIA or AGS graded diamonds. Mondera Diamonds only uses GIA and AGS reports in order to provide consistency to customers and avoid the price fluctuations that may exist amongst different reports on the market.
In A Rush To Buy A Diamond Engagement Ring?
Don't make costly, foolish mistakes before you
can properly research your diamond. Blue Nile |
Diamonds are composed of pure carbon, starting out as coal millions of years ago, heated and compressed into carbon crystals, which are very tightly packed groupings of carbon atoms. Each carbon atom is nicely bonded to 4 neighboring carbon atoms, so good luck trying to break that bond, I'm going for a beer instead. This is what makes diamonds so hard, and loose diamonds are used as industrial tools and drills as they are harder than the substance they are drilling into. Diamonds are mostly found in South Africa, Russia, Australia, and are mined. There's a lot of unrest and fighting going on between the miners and the diamond mine owners.
De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., is the oldest, largest
diamond mining company. A
monopoly, they are illegal and cannot sell loose diamonds in the U.S.
Instead, they sell loose diamonds to 150 "Site Holders" 10 times per year.
Site holders then distribute loose diamonds to diamond cutters around the world.
De Beers diamonds controls the most of the diamond industry. They changed Japanese tradition into giving diamond engagement rings in 1966
when they opened up shop there. De Beers makes some finished diamonds as well as uncut
diamonds that are marketed to diamond cutters, diamond brokers, and diamond
wholesalers, where they end up in diamond districts, and finally diamond jewelry
stores.
Warning About Buying Diamond Engagement Rings With Cash Or CheckCash can't be traced, but credit cards can. If the deal goes south, you'll never get your cash back, but you can dispute a credit charge. If you have cash to buy your diamond ring, leave it in the bank where it's safe and pay your credit card bill in full. The credit cards charge stores 3-6%, so some stores offer you a lower price if you pay cash. But there is risk if something goes wrong, they already have your money. How much do you trust them? If a store requires cash or check only for diamond wedding rings, it's time to leave. Any legitimate jeweler takes credit cards. You may need a new, clean credit card to handle deposits. If you have good credit, try the Discover Gold Card, with no annual fee, 100% fraud protection. What if you can't get credit at all and keep getting rejected? Then try this Credit Card Finder For People With Bad Credit. Don't keep applying to getting rejected, and your credit history ruined further, find out who will approve you before you apply. They find at least 2 credit cards guaranteed to issue an unsecured credit card to you. If you're in too deep, maybe now is not the time for a new card. |
This is the GIA description of the diamond engagement ring I bought my wife for your reference as you read this article:
Weight: 1.03 Carats Color Grade: H Clarity Grade: VVS2 Cut: Round Brilliant Fluorescence: NONE
Proportions: Depth:
57.5%, Table: 64%, Girdle: Thin to medium, Culet:
Small, Polish: Good, Symmetry: Good.
This will all make sense
real soon.
Click
Here To View Diamonds Similar To My Wife's Diamond at Blue Nile.
A good gauge is the Recently Purchased Diamonds at Blue Nile. That diamond search function is a snapshot of diamonds people are buying today. Then when you're on the diamond web sites, you can play with each of the "4 C" factors and see how it affects the price.
I recommend you only buy
a diamond if it has a GIA Diamond Grading Report or equivalent, who only
certifies loose diamonds, not diamond engagement rings. Jewelers
call them "GIA Certs". View
A Sample GIA Report from GIA. Dated certifications are laminated
and typed. Don't confuse this with an diamond appraisal, it's a diamond grading
report, accurate the date of grading. Most jewelers will get a GIA if it's over 3/4 carat. You want GIA certs dated 1 year or less, unless the diamond was in a vault unused. The GIA lab experts grade
diamonds with microscopes, UV lights, etc. With the GIA cert, jewelers
can't overstate your diamond, a violation of FTC rules. The GIA cert
"maps" your loose diamond, showing inclusions and blemishes plotted
as viewed from above or below. The GIA cert aids you to spot
inclusions when you view the diamond through a 10x loupe. GIA reports
might be stale if the diamond had abuse since it was graded. When you shop
Blue Nile,
Mondera, they
list the GIA cert online before you buy. How many mall jewelry stores will do
that for you?
Welcome to the 4 Cs of loose diamond buying You've heard the "Four Cs" a million times while buying engagement ring diamonds, but what are they? They are Carat, Cut, Color, Clarity. Each "C" effects reflected light in it's own way. The Four C's are 4 important parameters that are used to define the quality (or lack thereof) in a diamond. These 4 parameters work together to control selling prices and how diamond engagement rings look.
This is the weight of the loose diamond, one carat = 200 mg. The engagement ring diamond I bought was 1.03 Ct. Marketing tradition says spend 2 months salary, and get the best diamond you can that fits the bill. Most girls have psychological goals of 1 carat. It's amazing how diamonds smaller than 1 carat look really small. For many girls, Carats are the most important part. They show off their diamond engagement rings to their friends like a trophy, and the bigger it is the crazier they get. Some girls don't care about size and are just happy that you love them (I'm referring to the diamond). For some girls 1/2 to 0.75 Ct. is fine by them. Don't buy a 2 carat diamond engagement ring just because it's 2 carats. It could be a yellow 2 carat diamond ring loaded with flaws. You'll need the other 3 C's to ensure you get a quality diamond. Ask for the EXACT carat weight, you don't want to hear "It's about a carat". It's either 1.0 carat, or it's not.
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Other diamond buying guides don't mention this. There is a phrase called Total Carat Weight (TCW). It may appear as "Carat Weight Total", "CWT", "Ct. TW". It's the total weight of all diamonds on the engagement ring, i.e., one big diamond with 2 tiny diamonds. The tag might say 1.5 Ct TW. Your brain tricks you into thinking the big diamond is 1.5 Ct. But hang on, Casanova. The big diamond and the 2 smaller diamonds together weigh 1.5 Carat Weight Total. Big difference. |
Shopping for diamond engagement rings is
like shopping for meat. Buy diamond rings by unit weight, how much
it costs per carat, not just by cost of the diamond, so you can verify you are
paying fair value. The table below shows
4 diamond prices. Diamond D is the best deal, it costs only $3874 per
carat, whereas the cheapest one "Diamond
A", costs a whopping $4700 per carat, less bang for the buck.
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Diamond A |
Diamond B |
Diamond C |
Diamond D |
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| Diamond Carat Weight |
0.5 ct |
1.0 ct |
1.5 ct |
2.0 ct |
| Diamond Price |
$2350 |
$4500 |
$6500 |
$7750 |
| Cost/Carat |
$4700/ct |
$4500/ct |
$4333/ct |
$3875/ct |
Diamonds increase in price per carat at intervals like 1.0, 1.25, 1.5, etc. If you want a 1.0 carat, try 0.96 instead. Here's a search I did once:
Two diamonds close to 1.0 carat, you can't tell the difference in size, but huge difference in price.
Most diamonds range in color from clear to yellow, clear being the best. This diamond color chart shows how jewelers rate diamond color:
| < For Better |
For
Worse >
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GIA
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D |
E |
F |
G |
H |
I |
J |
K |
L |
M |
N |
O |
P |
Q |
R |
S |
T |
U |
X |
W |
XYZ |
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AGS
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0 |
0.5 |
1.0 |
1.5 |
2.0 |
2.5 |
3.0 |
3.5 |
4.0 |
4.5 |
5.0 |
5.5 |
6.0 |
6.5 |
7.0 |
7.5 |
8.0 |
8.5 |
9.0 |
9.5 |
10.0 |
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Colorless |
Near Colorless |
Faint Yellow |
Very Light Yellow |
Yellow |
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Most U.S. jewelry stores use the GIA letter scale. Ideally you want engagement ring diamonds that are D, E, or F in color. But your wallet determines the color grade, not you, most likely a J or a K color diamond. Most people get G, H, or I. Colors like J,K,L are more affordable. D,E,F are rare and expensive, out of range of us common folk. Don't consider M-Z, they have no business in diamond engagement rings, they belong in costume jewelry. Still some jewelry shops pawn them off on you as excellent diamonds. This is why I tell you to bring the Diamond Ring Buying Guide with you to the jeweler and refer to the color charts so the jeweler knows you researched your diamond wedding rings.
Don't Eat The
Yellow Snow
Some people like yellow
diamonds in the "Z" color range and beyond, referred to as
fancy color diamonds, or fancy yellow diamonds, a grade lower than "Z".
Some jewelers
trick you to make a yellow diamond look white, and show the diamond on a black velvet pad or background.
It sure does make the diamond look great but INSIST on seeing the stone
on a white background. (Even a white piece of paper). Black will make even
the most yellow diamond appear white. If jewelers refuse you, WALK
OUT! Better yet, hold it against a GIA color stone guide.
Diamond fluorescence is your diamond's reaction to ultraviolet light. Experts are divided whether fluorescence helps or hurts diamond values. Some unscrupulous jewelers pull a Jedi mind trick, showing you how "perfect" your diamond is as it turns blue under UV! So what, my T-shirt looks cool under UV lights also. They can't sell you on the diamond engagement ring's real attributes. UV lighting is not how we view normally diamonds, so it's a bogus show, a waste of time. These stones might look whiter in fluorescent lighting than they really are. A little bit of blue fluorescence is acceptable, but only in diamonds on the yellow side, as it takes the bite out of the yellow. Experts claim fluorescence makes a clear diamond appear cloudy in sunlight. You don't want a diamond engagement ring with fluorescence if your diamond is clear. The GIA cert indicates if there's diamond fluorescence. Loose diamonds with higher diamond fluorescence sell for less than diamonds with no fluorescence. So it does not matter which side wins this argument, it's how the market perceives diamond fluorescence that counts. This reduces values of diamond rings 10-20%. FTC forbids Misuse of the term "blue white" to make a loose diamond sound better. In a test done by GIA, "Even the experienced observers did not consistently agree on the effects of fluorescence from one stone to the next. In general, the results revealed that strongly blue fluorescent diamonds were perceived to have a better color appearance when viewed table-up, with no discernible trend table-down. Most observers saw no relationship between fluorescence and transparency."
My advice to you: Side with the market on this one and pick a good clear stone for your diamond wedding ring so that you don't need fluorescence at all to make up for the yellow, and don't obsess over it. No one views a diamond straight down from the top anyway.
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The American Gem Society (AGS) says diamond cut is so important to the value of diamond engagement rings that it can affect it by 25% to 50%. Most grooms buy a round brilliant diamond cut. There is also the emerald cut diamond, the asscher cut diamond, the marquise diamond looks like football or egg, then there's the ideal cut diamond, a form of round diamond, and the brilliant cut diamond. The princess cut diamond ring is another popular cut. Which one should you get? That's up to you and your fiancé's preference, don't ask me. I prefer a round diamond, you may like a princess cut diamond engagement ring. A diamond should look bright, sparkling and brilliant when viewed down through the table (top of the diamond). Diamonds have very mathematical geometries, and like most formulas, any errors produce bad results. |
Diamond jewelry cut probably controls more
variables affecting the quality and subsequent pricing of your engagement ring
diamond. If diamonds are not cut to
the right shape and proportion, the effects are less than optimal, even
if it has great color and clarity. If the diamond is cut too deep, you'll
see large dark shaded areas when viewing it through the table. Quality
of the cut is why GIA certificates are so important, as they include data that
salespeople won't point out: Depth % and Table %, ratios
compared to the width of the diamond. A good table cut should be
53-64% of the width. Good Depth % are 58-64%. Anything outside
this range means the diamond is too deep or too shallow. Polish and symmetry
(i.e. facet alignment) fine tune the price.
You want the GIA cert to declare at least "Good" for both.
In a nutshell, the 4 C's mean squat without good proportion data.
Ideal Cut DiamondsIdeal cut diamonds are cut close to mathematician Marcel Tolkowsky's round brilliant diamond design. According to AGS, ideal cut AGS-000 diamonds make up 5% of all diamonds. Ideal cut diamond table percentage should be 53-57%. They cost more, many stores don't stock them, but they are the best. The best way you can get ideal cut diamonds is directly from online discount diamond cutters half the price of mall stores. Online jewelry stores like Blue Nile sell ideal diamonds bought exclusively from hand picked cutters. Buying ideal cut diamonds direct from cutters, gets you top quality at discount prices compared to mall jewelry stores. |
Princess Cut diamonds don't have the same proportional requirements as round diamonds. For princess cut diamonds, just make sure the depth percentage is between 60% to 71%. The industry is still undecided on good specs for Princess Cut diamonds. No trade agreement has been established on them yet, American Gem Society is working on it. Make sure your special girl likes princess cut diamonds before you rush out to buy that engagement ring. Probably the biggest selection of princess cut diamond rings on the internet can be seen at Blue Nile.
Diamond clarity is important. Diamonds have natural flaws called inclusions and blemishes inside the diamond. These can be tiny air bubbles, black carbon deposits, clouds, or feather cracks. Look at ice cubes, you'll see they crack inside, and look like white feathers. On the external surface blemishes can be chips, imperfect corners, scratches, or pits on the surface. Some diamond flaws are so small you need a microscope to see, or a 10x loupe. Some flaws are so bad Mr. Magoo can see them. The easier flaws are to see, the worse the diamond is. The diamond will not properly bounce light as it should and will not sparkle as much as you'd like. Ideally you want zero inclusions in your diamond. But life is a trade off, the fewer inclusions, the more it costs. The more it costs, the more inclusions you'll be willing to live with! Once again the GIA and the AGS are there for us with more standards. Below is the GIA Color Grading Scale, and the AGS scales, graded by looking at the diamond through a 10x loupe. Most jewelers use the GIA scale. As you shop the mall jewelry stores, the tags may have the GIA letters on them. The ones you'll see the most of are VS2, SI1, and SI2, typically the ones you and I can afford. Diamond color clarity has a big effect on price.
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< For Better |
For
Worse >
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GIA
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Flawless |
Internally
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VVS1 |
VVS2 |
VS1 |
VS2 |
SI1 |
SI2 |
I1 |
I2 |
I3 |
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AGS
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0 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
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No Flaws
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No Internal Flaws
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Very, Very Slightly
Included
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Very Slightly Included
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Slightly Included
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Included
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Don't do it! Some diamond jewelry contains clarity enhanced diamonds, reworked losers, without a GIA cert, as GIA does not grade clarity enhanced diamonds. Some jewelers use a laser to vaporize black carbon deposits inside the flawed diamonds. This leaves a white track similar to ski tracks, that a trained jeweler could easily spot with a 10x loupe. Some jewelers perform fracture filling by injecting temporary clear solids whose index of refraction simulates diamond. But these are temporary solutions to permanent problems, band aids, that make your gem look 1-2 grades higher. Over time, humidity, and temperature extremes, clarity enhanced diamonds don't last. Some jewelers don't tell you it's a clarity enhanced diamond, and if you get one, it better be priced much less than other gems of the same color and clarity level. Clarity enhanced diamonds are like buying a car that's been in a wreck, then painted over. This is why I tell you to bring the Diamond Ring Buying Guide with you to the jewelry store for the clarity charts and photos of clarity enhanced diamonds. The jeweler knows they cannot pull the wool over your eyes.
How Do the 4Cs
Affect Your Diamond Price?
It's hard for the novice
to visualize how the price is affected by carat, cut, color, and clarity.
So I like to use the cool Interactive Search function on
Blue
Nile. It lets you see how quality and size tradeoffs affect
diamond price. And narrowing your search from over 20,000 diamonds, it's
easy to find the right diamond. Play around with the parameters and
you'll see the price change.
The Rapaport Diamond Report is a subscription for the diamond and jewelry industry, providing diamond prices, news, business issues, and fashion of diamond wedding rings, consumer trends. Many jewelers subscribe to this "Kelly Blue Book" of diamonds. Jewelers rely on "Rapaport Sheets" for world-wide wholesale diamond prices. Rap sheets are weekly spreadsheets listing wholesale diamond prices by color, and clarity on tables corresponding to the carat weight you choose. If you visit a Rapaport "member" (subscriber) jeweler, maybe they'll show you the wholesale price of your diamond, showing how much profit they are making, like some car dealers show you the invoice. They are under no obligation to, but the jeweler that sold me the diamond for my fiancé showed me the Rapaport Sheets and it ended up being the deciding factor of the sale. Jewelry stores, take note. Most jewelers buy diamonds at "a discount from the Rap Sheet", usually 10-20% off. So a jeweler can show you the Rap Sheet, charge you the "wholesale" price, and still make money, just like a car dealers make money selling you the car at invoice.
Ask people who bought
diamond engagement rings for a good bargain after reading this article or others who bought recently.
They may have only thought they got a good deal. Maybe they got ripped
off and don't know it. Maybe you know someone in the business.
Find an educated buyer that who knows that they got a good
deal. It helps to get a jeweler that is GIA Certified or AGS Certified.
How do you find one?
American Gem Society (AGS). Look for the link to "Locate AGS Dealer".
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