Are we too elitist & doing 99% of newbies a disservice?

[whitewave]

Yes, the diamonds with bigger pavilion angle have higher dispersion for pavilion main facets and catch more often light sources. Of course round diamonds with very deep pavilion have many strong disadvantages. There are many typical conflicts in cuts : between Fire and Brilliancy, black and white, chaos and order. There are not any best ( Ideal) combination . As people do dogs breeding they need do diamond cuts breeding .

i want to be an asscher. Lol

 

[Serg]

@Rockdiamond i did a deep dive on 60/60 early this morning and why do you think the well cut/ good light return (even with fire) 60/60s are hard to find? Are they getting recut to ideal specs or what?

Do I have it correct that 60/60s are less expensive than ideal cut diamonds? For those looking to maximize size, 60/60s can help stretch budget? (If you find a good one).

Table 59.5-60.5
Total height 59.5-60.5

Cutwise

cutwise.com

 

[Serg]

What do you mean?

It is always nicer to buy off the shelf from where made to order is possible, even small & simple things.

Did you even try to buy a diamond from any big manufacture?

 

[prs]

Like just about everything else in RT this thread has degenerated into a debate about cut. If this hasn't provided the definitive answer to the question posed in the thread title, then nothing will.

There's a lot of basic stuff newbies need to absorb before they are ready for advanced cut advice. If RT did a great job of providing that basic information then maybe you'd have a better chance of getting these freshly educated newbies to sign up and participate.

 

[Rockdiamond]

@Serg
YES- that 1.71ct reminds me very much of "the older" fine makes.
The longer LGF's ( 81%) give us narrower arrow shafts, less contrast, and more sparkle.

@prs - this is a long standing debate, and for me, it truly gets to the heart of how we can best assist people.
If the answer always is "Super Ideal!!!- everything else is lesser", we really aren't assisting consumers as much as Super Ideal vendors.

 

[Rockdiamond]

@Rockdiamond i did a deep dive on 60/60 early this morning and why do you think the well cut/ good light return (even with fire) 60/60s are hard to find? Are they getting recut to ideal specs or what?

Do I have it correct that 60/60s are less expensive than ideal cut diamonds? For those looking to maximize size, 60/60s can help stretch budget? (If you find a good one).

Howdy WW!!
From my perspective, it's truly impossible to do a realistic "deep dive" into 60/60 in a way that can give meaningful insight due to the remarkable slant in the discussion, and over many years.
In terms of how a Round Brilliant Cut Diamond is "supposed to" look, that horse has long left the barn.
The vast majority is cut and designed by computers to look just like the next H&A diamond.
For cutters, this is a huge win. They can cut stones which can be sold as "well-cut" - and still get away using cheap labor. Plus, polishing off more of the top of the diamond to get to that larger table size means less yield. That's why spread has diminished. BUT LEAKAGE ARGH!!!!
Bottom line is that the vast majority of cutters aren't interested in this debate. They can't see past the yield. So we're not going to be seeing any resurgence of 60/60....
The stone on the very left of the page Serg linked to -1.71 I/VS1 has leakage under that lovely 60% table- OH NO!!!!
Yet in person, your eye would never be able to see that aspect as a deficit. ASET will though.....

 

[AV_]

Did you even try to buy a diamond from any big manufacture?

I would not try such nonsense.

 

[OoohShiny]

I would not try such nonsense.

But I think Serg's point is that we should try to do so - because it would remove the (negative, cookie-cutter-preference?) influence of the vast majority of middle-(wo)men who work as the High Street vendors and the online vendors.

If we as customers were able to directly speak to manufacturers and request a piece of rough be cut to a particular style from a 'menu' of 'flavours' (which Serg has demonstrated with his software in a previous post in another thread) then the consumer has the power and we can buy stones that we see as beautiful, which suit our personal palette whether they are 'SuperIdeal' or 60/60 or whatever.

I think (??) that it would also (potentially?) reduce the price of diamonds - or at least allow the costs of custom cutting to be paid direct to the manufacturer in lieu of the overheads we pay the middle-(wo)men, rendering them the same price to the consumer.


At least I think that's the thrust of Serg's argument?! lol


I would love to be able to order a cool custom-cut stone direct from the manufacturer! I just need some money...

 

[Rockdiamond]

I read it as a statement of how uncaring large manufacturers are. We buy quite a lot of diamonds "for stock" - so large manufacturers listen to us, in a manner of speaking.
If they have what we need, they are Johnny on the spot, and run the stone over in a few minutes! If they don't have what we need, they hang up pretty darn quick.....
Yes, "true "wholesale sellers" generally offer prices less than retail- but they'd also are not set up to handle folks buying one stone at a time for personal use. Wholesale sellers here in NYC diamond district use the term "Private" to describe a consumer trying to buy from a wholesale seller. And many use the term in a less than complimentary fashion.
Wholesale and retail really are two different businesses.

I know there are sellers offering custom cut diamonds....my experience, after having done it, is that it's far too big a crapshoot for a consumer. Stones that we expected GIA to grade Fancy Intense Yellow came back Fancy Yellow- or brownish-yellow. And even things like fluorescence was not always possible to detect in the rough. A dealer would really have to cover their potential loss somehow.
A good dealer knows how to work with specific cutters for specific sorts of stones which avoids the consumer feeling the need to "custom cut"

 

[AV_]

I read it as a statement of how uncaring large manufacturers are.

I wouldn't know. It seems silly to ask for courtesy from a conveyor belt, or pay it!

custom cut diamonds... A dealer would really have to cover their potential loss somehow.

I hope some solution can become norm; the idea is too thrilling to die. I cannot really be the only lunatic - there is a small world of fantastic stones wanted both rough or cut, its desires obvious to yours truly.

 

[Rockdiamond]

Maybe my prejudice is due to the fact that our foray into having stones custom cut were Fancy Colors. There's more uncertainty with FCD's
This is not to say that there IS certainty when purchasing colorless rough.
Sometimes when a rough diamond is sawed, the top piece is a different color than the bottom after they are polished - and I'm talking 3 colors.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

@Rockdiamond i did a deep dive on 60/60 early this morning and why do you think the well cut/ good light return (even with fire) 60/60s are hard to find? Are they getting recut to ideal specs or what?

Do I have it correct that 60/60s are less expensive than ideal cut diamonds? For those looking to maximize size, 60/60s can help stretch budget? (If you find a good one).

If I may butt in. Since GIA introduced its cut grade system for rounds 15 years ago (5 years after me) there is more to be gained cutting deeper diamonds (which is why I added Looks Like to HCA).
Diamonds with larger tables often come from 'sawn tops'.


The smaller green stone size can be made larger in diameter by reducing the crown height.
Therefore 60:60's in larger sizes tend to be fewer because, believe it or not, larger diamonds are rarer than smaller ones.

 

[whitewave]

If I may butt in. Since GIA introduced its cut grade system for rounds 15 years ago (5 years after me) there is more to be gained cutting deeper diamonds (which is why I added Looks Like to HCA).
Diamonds with larger tables often come from 'sawn tops'.


The smaller green stone size can be made larger in diameter by reducing the crown height.
Therefore 60:60's in larger sizes tend to be fewer because, believe it or not, larger diamonds are rarer than smaller ones.

Thank you. Interesting.

 

[Rockdiamond]

It's really ironic when you think about it @Garry H (Cut Nut)
We are in total agreement on it- we just didn't know it back then when we fought from different perspectives. Me, from one of not understanding exactly how impressive the system you designed was.
And of course very few people would have predicted how pervasive deeper RBC's would become, if asked in in 2006 - you are probably one of the few.

 

[Serg]

But I think Serg's point is that we should try to do so - because it would remove the (negative, cookie-cutter-preference?) influence of the vast majority of middle-(wo)men who work as the High Street vendors and the online vendors.

If we as customers were able to directly speak to manufacturers and request a piece of rough be cut to a particular style from a 'menu' of 'flavours' (which Serg has demonstrated with his software in a previous post in another thread) then the consumer has the power and we can buy stones that we see as beautiful, which suit our personal palette whether they are 'SuperIdeal' or 60/60 or whatever.

I think (??) that it would also (potentially?) reduce the price of diamonds - or at least allow the costs of custom cutting to be paid direct to the manufacturer in lieu of the overheads we pay the middle-(wo)men, rendering them the same price to the consumer.


At least I think that's the thrust of Serg's argument?! lol


I would love to be able to order a cool custom-cut stone direct from the manufacturer! I just need some money...

"Chinese telephone" for "know-what" in diamonds


How can a big Surat polishing company know what consumer cut demands are potential favourites? Unlike the majority of mass-market consumer goods players polishing companies do not communicate directly with representative samples of consumers by traditional qualitative and quantitative market research techniques.


The only way to get the information is via a long communication line consisting of retail counter personnel - retail purchaser - wholesale people - Mumbai sales officer - Surat cutter. Imagine a committed sales person who accumulates valuable understanding of consumer preferences and comes up with a message at the beginning of the line. Most likely the information becomes garbled along the way and cutters can be reached with something very different to the initial input.


The more information familiar to the line members the less misinterpretation occurs. So, the common notions, like 3EX or H&A, go through smoothly (even if they represent just 10-20% of demand), while new concepts and ideas will be stuck in the communication chain or misrepresented. This results in an illusion that the common place is the only demand.


Same problem we see even on PS and it is the reason of original Garry post.

 

[Rfisher]

Repeated references to the Enchanted Diamonds fiasco in relation to shopper education on PS has to mean something.
If I guess at what I think this is all about - if I were in the trade as a virtual diamond supplier, it makes sense. But of course I can be dreadfully wrong.
It could be seen as:
I don’t sell branded super ideals.
I also don’t promote Zales/Kay typical quality.
There’s a whole ton of acceptable really nice diamonds that are between not good enough and super ideals that don’t get the attention they deserve. If only the mined diamond seeking demographic could be reached and educated about them. Or pointed towards them by educated members. Because those stones are plenty (?) and are being overlooked and it’d make a much nicer diamond (maybe at same price) for those who went the easy route at the mall.
Tapping into what’s already there-and eventually creating the demand for that middle ground - good enough diamond.
I get that.

 

[Rockdiamond]

Great point Serg- the lines of communication are basically ineffective.
But I have noticed a huge improvement in the cutting of Fancy Color cushions, Radiant and pear shapes.
Ironically, no one asked for smaller tables on those shapes yet that’s what we see nowadays. And as opposed to the lessening of spread we see in RBC the newer FCD’s have smaller table and increased crown height with no typical penalty in spread.
I see it has a huge improvement

 

[arkieb1]

Great point Serg- the lines of communication are basically ineffective.
But I have noticed a huge improvement in the cutting of Fancy Color cushions, Radiant and pear shapes.
Ironically, no one asked for smaller tables on those shapes yet that’s what we see nowadays. And as opposed to the lessening of spread we see in RBC the newer FCD’s have smaller table and increased crown height with no typical penalty in spread.
I see it has a huge improvement

Like radiant cut diamonds.... now we see heaps of "perfectly" cut ones with what I'll call the x pattern. You and I are in the minority on this forum when everyone used to reject radiants that had a crazy busy light return, because we have probably seen enough to know you can get a disco ball out of many of them, and lots of people IRL (I suspect including both of us) prefer zillions of tiny sparkles.... but I guess it's academic these days because radiants are out of fashion..... people seem to now prefer cushions to radiants.

It IS the same concept - a radiant had to be perfect on here or the prosumers usually rejected it. This is the same now with good to decent RBs, they get rejected because a lot of members will only push for Super Ideals at the detriment of size and cost.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Wow, I stayed up WAY too late reading and skimming this thread! My weekend was primarily spent Christmas shopping online! I have a few thoughts as one of the people who has spent a significant amount of time in Rocky Talky over the last 14 years (as of January).

Are we elitist? I think as has been said previously, the vast majority of people in the US go to the chain jewelers or local jewelers to buy diamonds and jewelry. There are others who are more used to internet shopping who will use a well known site such as Blue Nile, sift through and choose a very good or excellent cut diamond and be on their way thinking very good to excellent surely is good enough. They have no idea how broad the excellent cut grade is! So the people who actually come here likely have slightly more interest in either making an informed purchase, or at the very least desiring to get a decent diamond and not get scammed on the price. So the buyers who come here are from a small subset of potential buyers, many of whom are well educated, so in a way, that does make this population somewhat elite.

As to the number of people who sign up on PS, I think many, many more come here and read and learn, find names of good vendors, sometimes find actual stone recommendations, go buy their stones, and never return until maybe they want to buy studs or a tennis bracelet for a future anniversary. The small number of people who actually stay here for many years are people like me who love jewelry and consider it their hobby.

Regarding just a couple of vendors getting most of the recommedations today, there's an easy explanation which I think maybe @distracts was the first to mention. In the earlier days, I primarily found myself recommending Good Old Gold, Whiteflash, and James Allen stones. Whiteflash consistently has had the best selection of superideal cut rounds (and ideal princess cuts which seem to be somewhat less in favor today) over the years. I have bought from them many times, and from my personal experience and their selection and competitve pricing, I cannot see why I would not recommend WF to anyone coming here to buy a diamond. Good Old Gold lost Jonathan and that was THEreason to buy from GOG in the good old days when the selection of well cut stones was plentiful and the unique August Vintage stones were available. Their selection of diamonds was declining during the last years Jon was there, and it even became impossible for many to upgrade there. James Allen was genius to be the first of the big vendors to bring in high quality videos to many thousands of stones listed on their site. That was the first game changer for them. If a person here was looking at JA, I could set my filters to narrow down stones, then I'd go through and look at angles and the videos of the stones, and having spent a bit of time could recommend the best cut stones. Then a few years later, there was another game changer, the removal of specs and GIA reports from JA which made it impossible to be sure we were recommending the best stones. From that point on, I have never gone to the JA site to look for diamonds. Oh, and here's the disclaimer....yes, I realize in a perfect world we'd have a selection of 10 excellent to ideal stones with various specs physically in hand to choose from. But that is not possible with internet buying, so I will ALWAYS recommend stones within a "safe" set of specs for great performance. Wink started carrying CBI a few years ago and they are beautifully cut stones and I do recommend them highly, although their prices are sometimes higher probably because their primary sellers are brick and mortar jewelers. Victor Canera also started carrying a nice selection of diamonds, and I generally will recommend choosing a stone from him when the person has selected one of his gorgeous settings. I do want to say that I like B2C Jewels as they have outstanding pricing and some photos of stones which is necessary for me to recommend a stone. Diamonds by Lauren is good to recommend for colored stones and radiants. So to recap, years ago I had multiple preferred vendors, but today the majority of my recommedations do lean toward one vendor (for ideal rounds for e-rings or studs) simply because they are consistent with quality, selection, customer service, and pricing, and I also do not have the time or patience to sift through hundreds of virtual stones. I do recommend a few other vendors mentioned above on occasion. So for those here who think there's bias, the bias is for very good reason. We just don't have that many vendors to recommend these days.

Not sure I should even comment on the mmd rabbit trail, but I look forward to the day these are priced decently enough to recommend. They are way too high in price at this point in time for me to recommend other than perhaps the inexpensive Lightbox jewelry that seems to target very young buyers. A wide selection of very well cut stones is also not available yet. Hopefully this will become a good option for certain buyers in the relatively near future.

Last, I will agree with others that it is extremely frustrating to see relative newbies giving bad advice in RT. It is one thing to spend time helping someone find a diamond within their budget and preferences, but to have to correct or even debate a newbie giving bad advice on a thread is very annoying. On the other hand, I am the first to agree that a few posters tend to give way too much technical information to people coming here for help finding a diamond. Most don't want to have to get a GIA diploma before choosing a stone. They just want to find a beautiful diamond they can be proud to give or wear. I don't know how to fix this problem. It certainly wouldn't be fixed by certifying a few select people who were allowed to give advice. That would appear to me to be a very time-consuming unpaid job! I think there would be a bad outcome to that. PS would lose many who come and give good advice at their leisure.

I first came here just like everyone else...I was looking for a diamond for an anniversary. PS gets the credit for the multiple beautiful diamonds I own today. What's even better is that I have real friends that I have made here...priceless. I hope we can continue what we've done well for a very long time, and that's just to help people find a diamond they can be proud to own and enjoy.

 

[psadmin]

Sorry for being late to the party. This has been a great discussion and it has given me a whole lot to think about.

To clarify Garry’s thread came from a discussion we had about the consumers coming to PS. From all the consumers that do come to PriceScope, a small percentage ( less than 1%) such as those that do register and/or spend time to read get help and in most cases get something better than “Good Enough” v.s. otherwise. In my view, I believe PS as a whole does a darn good job at that and continually has been improving.

Thank you, everyone, for that!

The next question that popped up was how to help the other 99% that just dropped by and go away because it is too much information, difficult to understand, feels elitist, etc.

The first idea is to revamp education to be simpler and intuitive while keeping the nitty-gritty stuff. Improve the menu navigation and places to find education. We are currently working on this and if anyone has thought ideas or would like to volunteer let me know.

Another idea was brought up is somehow point them to great vendors such as our sponsors. At least this way they should at minimum get at least "good enough" v.s. otherwise. Not only have PriceScope sponsors have been vetted by us and the community. Most have been around with PriceScope for over 15 years. In that time I can tell you that the percentage of great stones the PS sponsors carry has improved immensely. I give kudos to the whole community as the sponsors have realized that PriceScopers want quality diamonds.

Hope this explains the thought process a bit.

Thank you all for participating and please keep going.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Welcome to the discussion DS, you are always wise and considered. I have made a few comments in some parts of your post:

So the buyers who come here are from a small subset of potential buyers, many of whom are well educated, so in a way, that does make this population somewhat elite.
excellent analysis - just kept the conclusion.

If a person here was looking at JA, I could set my filters to narrow down stones, then I'd go through and look at angles and the videos of the stones, and having spent a bit of time could recommend the best cut stones. Then a few years later, there was another game changer, the removal of specs and GIA reports from JA which made it impossible to be sure we were recommending the best stones. From that point on, I have never gone to the JA site to look for diamonds.
JA have been working with us and give Andrey loads of data which makes it possible for us to give HCA rankings, so searching on PS, plus their true hearts Ideal-scope photos (rather than arrows) means you can ll use PS to gain lots of info including see what GOG CBI (who are now more www than B&M, with slightly lower pricing too), IDJ, B2C (who are doing an upmarket line) etc in one snap shot.
I agree re pricing - I think grading them will be dumb in a year or 2 and they must stop pricing off natural as there is no bigger carat higher price justification. We will be listing MMD's of Factory Made LGD's soon, amd that may help bring in some price competition.

Last, I will agree with others that it is extremely frustrating to see relative newbies giving bad advice in RT.
check out https://www.pricescope.com/communit...dge-courses-with-a-quizz.253209/#post-4646434

It certainly wouldn't be fixed by certifying a few select people who were allowed to give advice. That would appear to me to be a very time-consuming unpaid job! I think there would be a bad outcome to that. PS would lose many who come and give good advice at their leisure. Point taken - but would love to find a way. I would consider a payment to helpers. But I accept there are downsides.

I hope we can continue what we've done well for a very long time, and that's just to help people find a diamond they can be proud to own and enjoy.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

"Chinese telephone" for "know-what" in diamonds


How can a big Surat polishing company know what consumer cut demands are potential favourites? Unlike the majority of mass-market consumer goods players polishing companies do not communicate directly with representative samples of consumers by traditional qualitative and quantitative market research techniques.


The only way to get the information is via a long communication line consisting of retail counter personnel - retail purchaser - wholesale people - Mumbai sales officer - Surat cutter. Imagine a committed sales person who accumulates valuable understanding of consumer preferences and comes up with a message at the beginning of the line. Most likely the information becomes garbled along the way and cutters can be reached with something very different to the initial input.


The more information familiar to the line members the less misinterpretation occurs. So, the common notions, like 3EX or H&A, go through smoothly (even if they represent just 10-20% of demand), while new concepts and ideas will be stuck in the communication chain or misrepresented. This results in an illusion that the common place is the only demand.


Same problem we see even on PS and it is the reason of original Garry post.

I think you captured the structural issues in the industry better than the many millions of words we have written together on this issue Sergey!

 

[Texas Leaguer]

Regarding the concern about the 1%, it all depends on total volume. 1% of what?

1% could be a very healthy number making for robust forum activity, attracting more advertisers, more and varied inventories to select from,and more participating trade people, if the volume of traffic coming to the site is substantial.

Because the forum has so much keyword rich content from postings and knowledge base articles and information, Pricescope at one time ranked very high for hundreds of important diamond and jewelry related key words and phrases, often appearing on page one of search results and attracting tons of newbies clicking through.

Over the years changes in google algorithms combined with hyper competition for page rank on the most valuable keywords has diluted that traffic. The 1% of today is likely a much smaller number than in the past.

But fundamentally changing the nature of the forum, including implementing some of the ideas that have been floated in this thread, could have unintended negative consequences for the community and is unlikely to improve overall traffic to the site. A much more predictable approach to returning the forum to its former glory is a concerted effort to improve site SEO restoring page rank to high traffic keyword searches.

Elitism or an over emphasis on the technical did not seem to be a problem back in the hey day. And I doubt that it is a significant issue today.

 

[MissGotRocks]

Regarding the concern about the 1%, it all depends on total volume. 1% of what?

1% could be a very healthy number making for robust forum activity, attracting more advertisers, more and varied inventories to select from,and more participating trade people, if the volume of traffic coming to the site is substantial.

Because the forum has so much keyword rich content from postings and knowledge base articles and information, Pricescope at one time ranked very high for hundreds of important diamond and jewelry related key words and phrases, often appearing on page one of search results and attracting tons of newbies clicking through.

Over the years changes in google algorithms combined with hyper competition for page rank on the most valuable keywords has diluted that traffic. The 1% of today is likely a much smaller number than in the past.

But fundamentally changing the nature of the forum, including implementing some of the ideas that have been floated in this thread, could have unintended negative consequences for the community and is unlikely to improve overall traffic to the site. A much more predictable approach to returning the forum to its former glory is a concerted effort to improve site SEO restoring page rank to high traffic keyword searches.

Elitism or an over emphasis on the technical did not seem to be a problem back in the hey day. And I doubt that it is a significant issue today.

I totally agree with this. If you radically change things, you run the risk of losing current membership and not gaining any more 'members'. Lurkers are buying too even if you can't quantify the number. I think that social media has depleted some of the membership as groups have splintered off for more private conversation. That is also the downside of losing PMs. I think the technical side is what drew many to this site as it was through those facts that people came to understand the importance of angles and cut. There won't be a one size fits all forum but this one has flourished for many years.

 

[arkieb1]

@diamondseeker2006 - you forgot to mention Brian Gavin, in the early days we all used to recommend them a lot both for decent cut diamonds and before their substantial price rises they used to have really well priced nicely made settings...

These days they still make decent settings but they have to compete price wise with a lot of other places that also do.

 

[yssie]

@diamondseeker2006 - you forgot to mention Brian Gavin, in the early days we all used to recommend them a lot both for decent cut diamonds and before their substantial price rises they used to have really well priced nicely made settings...

These days they still make decent settings but they have to compete price wise with a lot of other places that also do.

BGD has had too many customer service flops the past two years for me to keep recommending them

 

[Diamond Girl 21]

But yet is the gold standard world wide for diamond grading.

I wonder if GIA will ever see the light (pun intended ) and implement the same grading system AGS uses for light performance. How will the diamond industry change if that happens?

Sorry for going off track Gary just throwing my 2 cents out there.

I'm almost afraid to type this, but....here I go....I do wish that GIA would grade cut like AGS, however, I feel that sometimes there appears to be too much negativity about triple X stones. I personally have a beautiful GIA triple X stone that falls squarely within AGS ideal standards. Yes, these stones are harder to find, but they do exist. And, I still find some beautiful stones outside of the ideal standard. Just like color and clarity, this is a personal choice as well. I hope I didn't offend anyone. This is just my opinion.

 

[Rockdiamond]

@Diamond Girl 21
Part of this discussion, from my perspective, would be to prevent people who love a diamond they own from being convinced they have a bad stone based on aspects that may work for elimination- but not for selection.
For example- we’re discussing how GIA’s cut grade allows stones most of us would not choose.
But the reverse is not true. ( I may be using too many double negatives)
The point is, many drop dead gorgeous stones get submitted to GIA and achieve EX cut grade. I’ve even seen many amazing, beautifully cut stones graded VG cut by GIA.
So please don’t let a discussion like this dull your love of what’s likely an awesome diamond.

 

[dazzle66]

As a professional lurker on this site, at least 13 years, I think the most difficult aspect of being an online forum trying to get people to buy diamonds online is not having any way set way to determine what the consumer likes seeing/wants to see in their diamond. All the technical info is amazing for those of us that like to geek out over numbers and angles, but the biggest thing that helped me narrow down what I wanted was looking at comparison videos.

Most of us really don't have good options for viewing all the different flavors of MRBs in person, but watching videos really helped solidify the differences to me. All of @Rhino's School of Rock videos, as well as his August Vintage Instagram account, are a gold mine of comparison videos in different lighting environments. There are a few good PSer videos that get brought up when comparing the different Super Ideal brands, and @Garry H (Cut Nut) has some great videos, including the one about how a well cut MRB faces up bigger due to edge to edge brightness.

It is true that some people would really rather have a big spready non ideal MRB than a CBI, but we can't determine that for them. I like that we have different "teams" at PS: the Super Ideals, the 60/60s, the OECs/AVCs, etc. It's so helpful to have different preferences represented. But I think we'd do better service to stop arguing with each other and be able to jump directly what the consumer is asking for. Maybe a set of "screening videos" would be helpful? "Which of these types of cut speak to you?" And then be able to figure out how the consumer could get the best bang for their buck for the style of cut they've picked.

 

[Mrs_Strizzle]

[QUOTE="dazzle66, post: 4647386, member: Maybe a set of "screening videos" would be helpful? "Which of these types of cut speak to you?" And then be able to figure out how the consumer could get the best bang for their buck for the style of cut they've picked.
[/QUOTE]

As someone who never heard of OEC until lurking on PS I love this suggestion! MRB never really blew my dress up unless it was a fancy color. I could take em or leave em (in all fairness I don't believe I've ever seen a super ideal in person). I now own an OEC and am in love with it. It is the most beautiful diamond in the world (just like our children) even though the GIA says she just has a Good cut! I think teaching new visitors about ALL diamonds and letting them pick their own flavor would be wonderful.