Have we bought a good diamond?

[pomellina]

From the GIA report:

Round Brilliant
Measurements 4.16 - 4.18 x 2.48 mm
Carat Weight 0.26 carat
Color Grade E
Clarity Grade VVS1
Cut Grade Excellent

Depth 59.4 %
Table 60 %
Crown Angle 33.0°
Crown Height 13.0%
Pavilion Angle 41.0°
Pavilion Depth 43.0%
Star Length 50%
Lower Half 75%
Girdle Medium, Faceted, 3.0%
Culet None
Polish Excellent
Symmetry Excellent
Fluorescence None
Clarity characteristics Pinpoint

HCA 1.3

It's for my engagement ring. We've bought it (with 30 day return option for a full 'no questions asked' refund). We will, of course, look at it when it arrives to see whether it lives up to our expectations but just wanted to know what to expect! We're first time buyers and although it is quite small, we want it to be as perfect as possible!

Thank you.

 

[diamondloveaffair]

It looks like an OK stone. No red flags.

 

[darkadam]

Just my 2 Cents, but it looks fine to me. From what i know, those numbers should be between a Brilliant ideal cut and a Tolkowsky ideal cut. It won't be as fiery as a Tolkowsky, but should have greater light return. Anyone please correct me if i'm wrong.

 

[mcosme]

It looks alright but I would prefer a smaller table
Just wondering - I read your other thread and you wanted a .4 carat, how come your opted for such high clarity and smaller stone instead?

 

[pomellina]

We decided to go with a more expensive setting (diamond set shoulders - approx 0.4 ct - and platinum rather than white gold) so that knocked the diamond budget down a bit. I think I said we were looking around £550 in my other thread but we paid around £400 in the end (plus VAT) for the diamond detailed above. A similar 0.4 carat would've been twice as much as we paid from the retailer we used. I've got little hands (I'm only 5'0" and lots of children have bigger hands than me, I'm sure!) and since we are working to a tighter budget due to the setting, we wanted to get the clearest, whitest, best cut diamond we could. I wear hardly any jewellery so I think something small and perfectly formed will suit me just fine.

This diamond (E VVS1) was only about £15 more expensive than an I VVS1 from the retailer we used... I'm not sure why it was so much cheaper but we decided to go for it and pay for a whiter stone. I tried on a Canadian Ice I-coloured diamond ring in a shop and, while I thought it looked lovely, my fiancé felt there was a slight yellow/warm tinge to it so he was keen on us getting a colourless diamond if we were able to. Most of the rings we saw in the shops were G/H/I-coloured so I think he's going to be bowled over by this one when he sees it! I was originally planning on getting a G but when the price difference was so tiny we plumped for the E.

As we are buying sight unseen and don't really want to have to exchange the ring (once it's on my finger, that's where I want it to stay!), I wanted to increase our chances of having a clear stone by upping the clarity! I am sure we could have got away with a VS2 or perhaps a SI1 and been fine but, again, there was only around a £15 price difference so we decided to bite the bullet with this one.

If there had been a bigger price difference, we would have opted for a near-colourless and most likely a VS2 diamond. If we were in a position to view the diamonds in the shop, we would've been less picky but we wanted to feel confident that what came would be beautiful!

For what it's worth, I think the cheapest 0.26 carat E VVS1 diamond on sale at our chosen retailer is £50 more than we paid and most £75 more. Hopefully we got lucky with this one.

Hope that explanation helps!

Thanks everyone for reassuring me! Can't wait for it to arrive.

 

[marymm]

I think your choice is excellent, especially considering your parameters and preferences. This diamond will be very white and very bright... I love me an E color diamond and I also quite like a well-cut 60/60 stone - sub-carats face up particularly well in my opinion. I look forward to seeing your finished E-ring!

 

[AprilBaby]

Make sure to post a finished picture!

 

[kenny]

A good HCA score is not enough ... here's why ...

Rounds usually have 8 sides.
Each side has an individual crown and pavilion angle, so all eight may not be the same.
GIA does not report all the numbers, only one crown angle and one pavilion angle, each of which is an average of all 8.

If all 8 were identical the HCA score would be enough.
It's not.
Some of angles may be high or low, but all 8 may average out to a good number.

Variation of the angles will be apparent in an Idealscope pic.
The 8 arrows will not look identical.

https://www.pricescope.com/tools/ideal-scope

Two steps to picking a well cut round ...
1. HCA score under 2
2. Good Idealscope image