Dreamer_D
Super_Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2007
- Messages
- 28,566
So I thought I would post a little review for all my Canadian peeps out there.
I went to Spence diamonds in a major Canadian city to view some diamonds and settings the other day.
On the plus side, they have a million and one settings for you to view and they are all out in the open, so you can browse very easily. They also do a nice little diamond tutorial to help educate you prior to buying.
On the minus side is the information they are able to provide about their diamonds, which I found to be a little misleading and sometimes just wrong.
Spence uses some very interesting methods to help guide buyers to the type of diamonds they want to sell, which seem to be very good cuts in the J/K color range and SI2 clarity.
They have a lighting dock so you can view color, but the only samples they have are G-I-K-M-O colored. No higher colors at all! They do make sight mention of the existence of the colorless range, but only in passing. So the middle of the range is J/K.
They also show you some .20ct diamonds of various inclusion grades so that you can get a feel for it. They line up three stones and tell you to look at them, saying, "See they are all really sparkly and are ideal cuts of course, but the price difference ranges from $300 for this one to $1600 for that one!" Turns out the "highest" clarity grade is a VS2 and the "lowest" is an I3. The middle diamond they show you is an SI2. We looked at diamonds under the scope which was cool, I had not done that before. Again, no mention of VS and VVS clarity grades.
I asked if their diamonds were GIA or AGS graded but the answer was unclear to me. Basically, I think they buy diamonds that are not certed and then they run them through GIA software to get a grade for them? I kept being told that "All our diamonds are excellent or very good cuts, which are Ideal according to Spence." So spence is a little like Tiffanty in that they have an inventory for their stores and it is national, so if you want something specific it has to be called in.
Then they basically ask you how much you want to spend and what size you want. They disappear for a while then come back and bring up the specs of a diamond on the computer screen for you to view. Only one option presented. I asked to see a few different diamonds in person of different colors and clarity to compare, but this was not an option. I was directed to the CZ samples in the lighting box and also shown some CZ rings for size.
They did rustle up a sample for me to see. The lighting is typical jewelery stone lighting and so it is impossible to judge color or clarity or cut. I asked to see the cert, which she did not have, but she brought some sort of information up on screen -- it was not a lab cert but just the numbers listed. The highlights according to the SA were the the polish and symmetry which are "the most important aspect of cut quality, which as you can see are both very good, the highest rating". Also she pointed out that the 63.5% depth and 58% table were both in the ideal range. No mention of the approximate 36.5% crown angle or the 43% pavilion angle
So I was very disappointed to hear such misinformation passed off as fact.
I asked if I could have more than one diamond brought in to see to compare, and she said no, I could call in one at a time and would need to pay a 20% deposit for that to happen. I could then call in as many as I wanted to see, and there was a 45 day refund policy. This seems fair.
On the whole, it was a good experience, but I will not personally buy a diamond from them. I think that if you wanted to find a really well cut diamond you would need to go in and look over the "certs" they have to find the winners and only call those in. Basically, you cannot rely on them to help you pick, at least based on my experience, because they are not knowledgable enough about cut quality.
I went to Spence diamonds in a major Canadian city to view some diamonds and settings the other day.
On the plus side, they have a million and one settings for you to view and they are all out in the open, so you can browse very easily. They also do a nice little diamond tutorial to help educate you prior to buying.
On the minus side is the information they are able to provide about their diamonds, which I found to be a little misleading and sometimes just wrong.
Spence uses some very interesting methods to help guide buyers to the type of diamonds they want to sell, which seem to be very good cuts in the J/K color range and SI2 clarity.
They have a lighting dock so you can view color, but the only samples they have are G-I-K-M-O colored. No higher colors at all! They do make sight mention of the existence of the colorless range, but only in passing. So the middle of the range is J/K.
They also show you some .20ct diamonds of various inclusion grades so that you can get a feel for it. They line up three stones and tell you to look at them, saying, "See they are all really sparkly and are ideal cuts of course, but the price difference ranges from $300 for this one to $1600 for that one!" Turns out the "highest" clarity grade is a VS2 and the "lowest" is an I3. The middle diamond they show you is an SI2. We looked at diamonds under the scope which was cool, I had not done that before. Again, no mention of VS and VVS clarity grades.
I asked if their diamonds were GIA or AGS graded but the answer was unclear to me. Basically, I think they buy diamonds that are not certed and then they run them through GIA software to get a grade for them? I kept being told that "All our diamonds are excellent or very good cuts, which are Ideal according to Spence." So spence is a little like Tiffanty in that they have an inventory for their stores and it is national, so if you want something specific it has to be called in.
Then they basically ask you how much you want to spend and what size you want. They disappear for a while then come back and bring up the specs of a diamond on the computer screen for you to view. Only one option presented. I asked to see a few different diamonds in person of different colors and clarity to compare, but this was not an option. I was directed to the CZ samples in the lighting box and also shown some CZ rings for size.
They did rustle up a sample for me to see. The lighting is typical jewelery stone lighting and so it is impossible to judge color or clarity or cut. I asked to see the cert, which she did not have, but she brought some sort of information up on screen -- it was not a lab cert but just the numbers listed. The highlights according to the SA were the the polish and symmetry which are "the most important aspect of cut quality, which as you can see are both very good, the highest rating". Also she pointed out that the 63.5% depth and 58% table were both in the ideal range. No mention of the approximate 36.5% crown angle or the 43% pavilion angle
I asked if I could have more than one diamond brought in to see to compare, and she said no, I could call in one at a time and would need to pay a 20% deposit for that to happen. I could then call in as many as I wanted to see, and there was a 45 day refund policy. This seems fair.
On the whole, it was a good experience, but I will not personally buy a diamond from them. I think that if you wanted to find a really well cut diamond you would need to go in and look over the "certs" they have to find the winners and only call those in. Basically, you cannot rely on them to help you pick, at least based on my experience, because they are not knowledgable enough about cut quality.
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