Find your diamond
Find your jewelry
shape
carat
color
clarity

Do these rival BGD Signature, WF ACA and other super ideals?

T

tenbinko

Rough_Rock
Joined
Nov 29, 2012
Messages
39
I'd post the actual AGSL reports here, but the files were a bit too large to be attached for some reason... anyway, my friends in China have introduced me to a new line of diamonds provided by a Chinese company called "zbird"... I didn't trust my eyes when I first saw the reports, because the ASET images seemed almost perfect... and the specs on those two diamonds I checked out were also quite stellar...

What do you guys think... do these look like amazing diamonds?

If so, I wonder who cut them... people in China don't know that much about diamonds, I don't think... they couldn't possibly cut them that well.

_2326.jpg

_2327.jpg

pic1_specs.jpg

pic2_specs.jpg
 
Re: Do these rival BGD Signature, WF ACA and other super ide

They look like ideal cut diamonds. You can't judge if they are superideal/hearts & arrows unless you have hearts images. They could have been cut anywhere and purchased by this company to sell as their branded stones. They were graded in the US.
 
Re: Do these rival BGD Signature, WF ACA and other super ide

i love the specs on the .54ct stone... :love:
 
Re: Do these rival BGD Signature, WF ACA and other super ide

I had the opportunity to meet and consult with the ZBird folks in 2009 and 2011. They're motivated and increasingly sophisticated. They and their competitor 9Diamond could be considered the BNs of China in many ways.

tenbinko|1355368942|3329973 said:
If so, I wonder who cut them... people in China don't know that much about diamonds, I don't think... they couldn't possibly cut them that well.
Click to expand...
Actually it's the opposite. Since it's a recent market their purchasing and selling approaches have placed higher priority on a cut grade than our much-older market where cut is relatively "new". Consumers are aware of cut quality and actively seek it out in-line with color and clarity. "EX" is somewhat compulsory. "VG" is seen as a compromise (along the lines of going to SI in clarity...the onus is on the jeweler to demonstrate that the compromise is not too great...or to offset lesser cut with an extremely white or large diamond).

"H&A" diamonds, which are plentiful in upscale jewelry stores, are positioned in terms of cut-desirability the same way colorless and VS+ diamonds are in terms of color/clarity-desirability. For more than 70 years in the west the GIA did not include a cut grade - so many USA jewelers are still coming to grips with improving cut quality and cut education in their stores. China skipped that 70 years of "non-cut-awareness." As a result, when it comes to sizes 0.50ct plus, the goods in China are actually higher in overall cut-quality than goods in the USA.

For anyone interested in the explosive growth of that market, here are two short articles about China and Diamonds.
These were originally published in IDEX magazine - my thanks to Andrey and Pricescope for including them here.

China On The Rise (1): "A Different Process" halfway down describes the China online-buying situation.
https://www.pricescope.com/journal/china-rise

China On The Rise (2)
https://www.pricescope.com/journal/china-rise-exploding-economy-fantastic-future-part-two
 
Re: Do these rival BGD Signature, WF ACA and other super ide

Thanks a lot for the info and the links, John.

Sorry that I wasn't aware of it before, but I see now from your Pricescope profile that you are truly an influential authority on diamonds... it's certainly an honor to get responses from you.

I also see that you are part of Crafted by Infinity, whose website I've just visited.

It seems that your diamonds are superior... I have cut estimation tables from both GIA and AGS, so I'm curious to know what specs would typically be required to meet the standards of an infinity diamond... are you at liberty to disclose, even just partially, the requirements for an Infinity diamond?
 
Re: Do these rival BGD Signature, WF ACA and other super ide

Not John, but I hope you do not mind me answering your question.

Stepping away from specs for a second, the most important standard for a diamond to be called a Crafted-by-Infinity is that it is cut by us. This is based upon our belief:

- We believe that it is better to control our production and thus foresee and predict how the final diamond comes out than to measure how the diamond came out after cutting it.
- Experience taught us that certain aspects of our cutting-process lead to results, currently neglected in the optical studies of how light interacts with a diamond.

Based on this, we look at how we go about in our cutting, since we feel that looking at the currently measured specs afterwards does not tell the entire story.

Live long,
 
Re: Do these rival BGD Signature, WF ACA and other super ide

Paul,

Curious question...

I am completely new to this field and found this board as I am searching for a e-ring. I ended up buying a HA diamonds from BGD. I know I will be happy with the product, but I am not sure what premium should be paid for a very well crafted/cut diamond. What is stopping people from buying a lower cut diamond, in which they can find a bargain, then getting it sent to be recut? Sorry if this seems like a silly question
 
Re: Do these rival BGD Signature, WF ACA and other super ide

Not Paul, but I hope you do not mind me answering your question ;)

First, you bought well.

Re Recutting: Planning and labor costs, grading and (especially) weight loss all influence the viability of such a plan. In most cases diamonds are already polished near a "magic weight" threshold. To put them on the wheel again would reduce them to a lower value-category. That is why you can find abundant 1.00-1.01ct diamonds and very few 0.98-0.99ct diamonds. To purchase a 1.01ct EX or VG and improve it - but bring it down to 0.92ct (example) - immediately drops it in trade-value nearly 20%. The improved cut will offset some of that. But you must pay planning/labor, shipping & transit insurance to the lab, grading charges (and hope you get the same color/clarity grades...a borderline F could possibly come back a G!), and shipping & transit again... Any "savings" you made by buying the 1.01 could be quickly outpaced by these costs. And of course it takes some time to do all this, so your money is tied up.

If you manage to stay in the same weight category the outlook is not so drastic, but the art of re-cutting is one that involves gemological skill-sets that are unconventional. Saying "this one seems good" is easy. But there are critical in-hand details relating to primary structure, the influence of pique, internal strain, graining, naifs and other physical factors of the existing stone. The planner must also have laboratory expertise, cutting and polishing experience, familiarity with all current cut-grading metrics/tools/technology and spectral evaluation. Being able to foresee the time,expense and possibility of improving it without any hitches, and being confident the color/clarity grading will remain the same or better are also important to predicting multiple paths accurately. So the proposition is one that takes some experience in properly calculating for a given stone and scenario.

I personally offer recutting services to the trade. Several paths are offered. Logically crafting to Infinity is one of those. For a given diamond I will also calculate yield to my own "Executive" standards, as well as AGS Ideal, some GIA EX parameters and a small window of shallow GIA VG I'll sleep okay at night-with. There are many factors which influence how much weight must be reduced, and in every case it takes more weight loss to finish at a higher level of optimal angles and 3D cut precision:

A 1.40 GIA G might yield a 1.35 VG, a 1.25 GIA EX (not AGS0), a 1.15 AGS Ideal , a 1.08 "Executive" diamond and a 1.05 Infinity. Seeing those numbers, if you were the diamond's owner, which would you like? From experience most competitive B&M jewelers will opt for the 1.25 with GIA EX paper. Of course that is not my recognized niche, so my clients are biased to my own views and frequently seek the highest level of quality with practical yield. In hundreds of diamonds where I've offered the re-cut paths above less than a handful have opted for VG, and only when improving it farther would take it below a profitable weight threshold for them.

Professionals submitting diamonds are sometimes shocked at how much different finishing scenarios can be for a given stone.
In one case we started with a 1.91 which could only finish as a 1.50 GIA EX. To do more would have killed the 1.50.
In another case we started with a 1.70 that finished as a 1.60 AGS Ideal. It was even sold while still in process. Happy day.
 
Re: Do these rival BGD Signature, WF ACA and other super ide

great info, thanks.

Cant believe how much I have learned over the past month.

Thanks again
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
GET 3 FREE HCA RESULTS JOIN THE FORUM. ASK FOR HELP
Jewelry Blog
PriceScope-Concierge-Ad
Find prime cuts.
Top