Originally Posted by dmp

I sold jewlry for awhile...let me impart wisdom to you.

#1. NEVER. EVER. EVER buy a stone based on carat weight.

Five C's to consider - I put them in this order.

• Cost
  Figure out what you can afford. The 'two-months salary' line was invented by de Beers - the Company with the world diamond monopoly. A GOOD diamond can be found for $500 or so, depending on size. I'll get into what 'good' is later.
• Color
  Diamonds are rated from D-Z in terms of color. D = Colorless. The further a stone gets from 'D', the more yellow/brown the stone appears. Do you want your diamond to look yellow and (my opinion) nasty? When I see a stone which looks like it was made of frozen **** or butter I get very turned-off. Yuk. Keep your diamonds - the large, centerpiece diamond (smaller accent stones aren't as important to keep a good color) should be NO worse than G/H. I'd never buy a diamond with a color more yellow than F, really.
• Clarity
  Clarity ratings are pretty important. 'flaws' in diamonds are called 'inclusions' -the MOST important aspect to consider is 'can I see flaws without magnification?' I personally wouldn't care if I could see a flaw under 10x zoom...because nobody I know HAS such powerful eyesight. If one can't see a flaw by looking at the stone, that's all the matters. A clarity rating of Si2 is fine, usually
• Cut
  For me, Round stones are the only stones I like, except in accent stones, other cuts can be okay. Unless you have a LOT of money, keep away from Marque-cut or oval stones. Why, you may ask? Bow-Tie. Most often stones cut on that pattern have a VERY dark mid-section which sorta looks like this; <><> but filled in. Rarely have I seen an oval or marque w/o such effect. but more than the 'shape', getting a diamond cut too deep or too shallow can adversely affect the percieved 'brightness' of the stone
• Carat Weight
  Here's the biggy. Here's what sells. "Come in and get this ONE CARAT Diamond ring for $199!!" you see plastered on walls at department stores. The unsuspecting consumer would buy the ring and bring it home, showing their friends their "Gasp!" ONE carat ring!! Nevermind the ring looks like burned egg yokes.

So...what to buy? It's on you. However, MY suggestion is:

1) a .85 Carat, F color, Si1 stone is MUCH better than a 1 Carat, G color Si1 stone.

2) a .5 Carat D color, vSI is MUCH better than a 1 Carat H Si1

My wife has a .86Carat E, SI2 which looks like a tiny FLASHLIGHT (worth About $3,000-3500). It's stunning. A lady down the street was bragging about her 1.25 Carat ring she spent $2,500 on. We went to look at it. NASTY. Yuk. Compared to my wife's stone, it looked like the lady had a chicklett on a band. We didn't have the heart to tell her we thought she got 'taken/ripped off'.

One other piece of advice. Buy from a place which gives full-price trade-ins. We got my wife's current ring by trading in the first ring I got her at our engagement 5 years prior. That cut down the price of her current ring by nearly $1000. OH...speaking of price...Jewlers can almost ALWAYS drop 30% off the price-as-marked, if you ask.



Good luck! Post up your results!

Originally Posted by Peladu

Someone seems to have a cheerleader fetish…..

Originally Posted by PSS-Mag

No I just hoped that my best bet for finding photos of women in rolla would be to search for thier cheer leaders. I was 1/2 right!