10-31-2011
So you want a one carat diamond…cheap!
Well…you can do that! But you should expect to end up with a cheap one carat diamond.
Sounds pretty obvious, right?
Technical terms aside, comparatively low priced diamonds will always be lesser quality than their pricier counterparts. Yes, even if the stones are the SAME clarity and color rating, the more expensive stone will invariably be better. Why is this true?
First of all, all diamonds are unique creations of nature. They can look bright or kind of “sleepy”. Clarity characteristics can be black and obvious or wispy and scattered. There are yellowish diamonds that can look white and white diamonds that can look gray.
Let’s look at a one carat diamond and what might make it cheap.
A well cut one carat should be about 6.4 mm in diameter. If your one carater is only 6mm, as many “mall diamonds” may be, your stone is cut very deep and will look very small and very dark. Industry people call these “nail heads”. They are very cheap regardless of their color and clarity rating, and they look it! Conversely, a shallow stone with a depth of 6.6 mm or more will appear larger, but will be glassy looking and lack the brilliance of a well cut stone. But still, it looks bigger, and some people will accept the trade off.
Yes, also a cheap stone.
But wait! There’s a guy who wants to sell you your one carat stone with a “D” color! Wow! That’s the highest color you can get and it’s 20% less than the last one you looked at! All that, and it has very strong blue fluorescence! You guessed it…also a cheap stone.
This type of diamond will look like you just rolled a Krispy Kreme over it. That’s what VSB fluorescence does to this kind of stone.
Now, if he’s got a lower color diamond, K or L for instance, that same fluorescence that made the last stone a bad deal could make this one a good deal! Still a cheap stone, but it will appear whiter because of the fluorescent effect on stones of this color range.
You can get a low price on a nice stone if you are willing to take a fancy cut diamond. Marquises, pears and a few other shapes are in low demand and are priced accordingly. Fancy shaped diamonds tend to be a “flavor of the week” item on the jewelry business, whereas the round brilliant cut accounts for more than 95% of diamond sales.
Deeper, darker, shallower, duller, included, shaped , damaged….there are lots of things that will make an otherwise good stone go to the dark side. A beautiful SI2 diamond will cost more than a “lucky” SI2.
It’s diamond Darwinism!
At Bomi, our diamond buying team consisting of Michael Killian, Susannah Florencio and Gary Grelick use their vast experience to acquire the best combinations of quality, price, value and look so that your Bomi will always stand out in the crowd!
October 2011 Blog Post
BOMI Jewelers: Combining Old World Skills with Modern Technology
BOMI considers it to be a major advantage to have Master Goldsmith, John Lupke as part of our team. John has been using his skills and dedication as a jeweler for BOMI for over 12 years. He was taught the art of lost wax casting as a young man by his father, also a jeweler. This is a very special art form, as most modern day jewelers make custom jewelry by programming a design in a computer to achieve a CAD image and then having the computer produce a wax. It is very rarely done by hand anymore.
The lost wax casting is a process that enables a wax pattern that has been modeled by hand to be transmuted into metal. After a customer has picked out a design for a piece of custom jewelry, John takes his time and uses his artistic eye to create the wax mold. The customer then approves the wax mold as the size and scale they were envisioning. John then touches up the wax model since small scale fine jewelry pieces necessitate some adaptations to overcome the effects of surface tension. Next he attaches the wax model to a pour cup, which is funnel-shaped to channel the metal into the mold from the outside, using sprues made from rods of wax. A venting system is made the same way to convey air and other gases out of the mold when it is filled with hot metal, like gold or platinum. The model is surrounded by a material that will cover it smoothly when wet and be able to withstand high temperatures when baked. John uses a special burnout cycle to constantly provide porosity free, crisp and clean castings. After the annealing and cooling cycles the casting gets pre-finished in a magnetic barrel tumbler and is ready for stone setting.
BOMI supplies all diamonds and natural colored stones and all different types of metals at the right price. We can keep your jewelry designs and ideas secure, never releasing them to anyone but you for any reason. Stop in to consult with our designers and have John Lupke create a special one-of-kind piece of jewelry for you!
S.F.
9-29-2011
The Saga Continues
Chapter 2
The customer who had the awful experience of finding out that her diamond ring was actually a moissanite ring has been spreading the word amongst her friends and associates. Over the years she had recommended many people to this local jeweler, and is now advising them to have their jewelry checked out. The staff at Bomi has been acting as third party appraisers to these customers. Unfortunately we have found more moissanites and synthetic stones that were sold as genuine.
Moissanite hit the jewelry market in the 1990s. It looks very different from other simulated diamonds like rhinestones and cubic zirconia. Rhinestones and cubic zirconia are very soft and easily abrade, so usually just a quick look will give it away as fake. Moissanite is a much better fake, it is a hard material and does exhibit brilliance. It has fooled the average customer and even some jewelers who do not have a trained eye.
As Michael mentioned in his blog on this subject, moissanite passes a thermal conductivity test therefore a secondary tester is needed. Bomi is equipped with a gemological laboratory that includes a moissanite UV light tester, a refractometer to measure the refractive indexes of stones, scales, measuring devices and microscopes. Most of these are unnecessary when identifying a moissanite. Our eyes hold the key. What we do is look at it closely to get an overall visual impression. Moissanite just doesn’t look like a diamond, something isn’t quite right. Certain identifying characteristics can separate a moissanite from a diamond just from visual observations in the microscope. Most moissanites have polished girdles, instead of rough or faceted girdles like you see in diamonds. Moissanites exude facet doubling that is obvious under 10 x. Most moissanites are clean internally but some have stringer or needle-like inclusions.
09-06-11
Tales from the Bomi Counter
Chapter 1
This past week, a woman came into our office with a ring that she received from her husband as an anniversary gift. She told me she wasn’t sure she wanted to keep it and asked me to check it out for her. (At this point I knew it wasn’t from Bomi.)
I agreed to take a look at the ring for her.
Hmmmm….
I had assumed that this was a diamond ring, but these did not look like diamonds. I conferred with my co-buyer and graduate gemologist, Susannah Florencio.
After careful examination and testing, we determined the stones to be moisannite, a man made diamond simulant. These are tricky to identify because traditional thermal testers will give a positive test result for diamond. That’s because thermal tests are geared towards separating cubic zirconia from diamond.
So now to break the news…
Questions race through our heads. Did her husband know he was buying a stimulant? If he did, was it because of budget constraints? Did the suburban jeweler who sold him the ring commit a fraud? How much did he pay for this thing? Is there a chance we are wrong?
So we told her
She was shocked. They had dealt with this jeweler for many years…even sent friends to him.
She asked me to check her other pieces, which were all fine. I apologized for having to give her such bad news.
Shaken, she left the store.
The next morning, she’s back.
When confronted, the jeweler stated that he didn’t know how this could have happened. He would fix it for her.
She insisted he take it back and return their money them. a few thousand dollars.
He did, and we made her a beautiful diamond ring.
How does this happen?
We are all in a trust based industry. Scenarios like this give us all a black eye.
I personally feel that most jewelers run honest operations and wouldn't dabble in fraud. Professionals in our industry just wouldn’t do this, especially when they operate a brick and mortar in their own community.
The moral of the story is to deal with only with trusted, professional, industry entities. Don’t afraid to double check your purchases.
Since 1935, Bomi has been THE gemological answer source in Western New York.
Whenever there has been jewelry related question in the local media, Bomi has always been a part of the answer.
We truly appreciate your continued trust and confidence.
Michael Killian
08-08-2011
Comparing Diamond Laboratory Reports
Prospective buyers of engagement rings and large center stone diamond jewelry often find themselves looking at paper as well as diamonds. What are these papers? Do you need them? What about all the different labs…EGL, GIA, AGS, IGI?
The internationally recognized diamond grading system was developed and introduced to the world in 1955 by an organization known as the Gemological Institute of America or GIA. .This standardization of terms revolutionized the diamond industry by providing buyers and sellers with a concrete way to communicate about diamonds and value. Definitions were provided for “flawless” diamonds…a term that was used very loosely up until this point. A new color scale was introduced that used the letter grade “D” as a starting point so that it would not be confused with independent systems that often started with “A”. Clarity and color standards were now defined in easy to understand terms.
In the 1970’s, GIA was the only game in town. They produced all of the certifications up to this point. Their standards and opinions were gospel in the trade.
Market forces soon began to spawn new labs that, in some cases, would assign the higher grades to borderline stones. These stones were mostly very good imperfect range diamonds…stones that GIA would call “ I1 “ . These were the best of the imperfect stones. The new labs in many cases would call these stones “SI2”. They even went so far as to create a new clarity category, “SI3” , slightly included with barely eye visible imperfections.
The jewelers were justified in selling these stones for a higher price.
While clarity calls on SI diamonds can be subjective, calls on high clarity diamonds are not, and are much more difficult to defend. This explains why you won’t generally see lots of VVS clarity diamonds from the European Gemological Laboratory. The owners of these stones know that they will be more valuable with the GIA report, and the rating would be similar from the EGL.
The United States offices of the EGL provide very strong grading and variances, when they occur, will differ from the GIA report by either one color or one clarity, but rarely both.
The overseas EGL reports are a different story.
These labs are not affiliated with the US counterparts. The stones from these labs, while sometimes accurate, are often off by three or four grades. They are offered at huge discounts, because the grades are often fictitious.
BOMI does not offer these lab reports to their customers.
At the end of the day, a diamond is a diamond, and it is what it is regardless of what the papers indicate. Even an overseas EGL certified diamond can be a good buy if it if purchased by a knowledgeable person for what it actually is, rather than how it is being represented on a certificate.
7-8-2011
Good God, don't tell me snake jewelry is back in fashion?
As untraditional as snake jewelry is, and while some people find it disgusting, it keeps revolving back into fashion. People connect with the idea that the snake symbolizes sexuality, rebirth and wisdom. Dating back to ancient Egypt when the serpent was both worshipped and feared it was fashioned into arm bands and rings. And in the 1800s snake jewelry was very popular as Victorians used an entwined snake motif to represent eternal love and infinity. When Elizabeth Taylor famously donned snake jewelry in the 1963 film Cleopatra it reignited the trend. Todays celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Dita VonTeese, and Kim Kardashian are pairing snake jewelry with high-end designer dresses for red carpet events. BOMI is right on point with some incredible, unique and fashion-forward snake jewelry.
Celebrity images provided by www.stylenews.peoplestylewatch.com and www.fantasyjewelrybox.com and may be subject to copyright.
