The review today is for Fielder and we’re comparing two diamonds he found on James Allen. He’s done some research and thinks these diamonds have great proportions, but he wants a diamond that maxes out on fire while still making sure it has good brilliance.

Diamond 1: 1.01ct DVVS2

Let’s take a look at the proportions.

The crown angle on this diamond is 35.5°, which we know is slightly steep. In this case this is a good thing because we’re looking for a diamond with a high crown and a steeper crown angle. Usually this will mean a diamond with a smaller table as well so this diamond has a 56% table. A smaller table will mean you give away some spread, but when it comes to maximizing fire it is one of the best trade-offs you can make.

With a slightly steep crown, what you want is to make sure is that both the pavilion and the lower girdles are working to help maintain the light return in the diamond. This means a shallower pavilion if possible and longer lower girdles.

Here we have one of those things going for us, which are 80% lower girdles. What’s more important than knowing the angles is just looking at the diamond’s 360. In this diamond I see just slightly less brightness under the table but there are no signs of light leakage. I wouldn’t even call this weak light return. And even though this isn’t going to be a perfect H&A, the diamond was cut with excellent optical symmetry both in the major facets and the minor facets so this is clearly a well-cut stone.

Are there any negatives? With a diamond that is at or just over the 1.00ct mark, it’s almost inevitable in a non super-ideal diamond that the cutter had to do something to push this diamond over that magic number mark. Here the diamond was cut with a 4% girdle and it has a pretty high total depth so for a 1ct diamond, it faces up a little small and falls short of the 6.5mm mark that you would expect from a true 1ct diamond.

On paper, this is still a 1ct diamond but if you ever wondered why super-ideal 1ct diamonds are more expensive it is because if this diamond were re-cut to the correct proportions with no weight retention, there is a good chance it will fall below 1ct. How can we test this out? We look at the weight ratio and I calculate that for this diamond to be 1.070. This is considered a high weight ratio and implies about a 4.3% weight retention so if we took that weight out of the diamond you can see how it will fall short.

The diamond looks nice and crisp and even though you don’t expect to have to worry about its color and clarity, I have seen VVS2s where there is just something wrong with the material and having a cloud as a grade setting inclusion and having additional clouds in the comments would have concerned me a little bit. This is why having a highly magnified 360 video is so important when buying a diamond online.

Diamond 2: 1.02ct EVVS1

The proportions on this diamond are perfect on paper so if you were just looking at a lab report you might be tempted to take a risk on it.

This is actually a really good diamond, but is it better than Diamond 1?

The proportions on Diamond 2 may be better on paper than Diamond 1, but the optical symmetry of Diamond 1 is better. You can tell because it is harder to line up all the arrows in this diamond and when you get the arrows aligned as best as you can, the hotspots around the table reflection are not symmetrical. This is a good indication that there is a bit more variation in the angles of the lower girdle facets in this diamond and so the light return is not as even. Overall, this diamond may be brighter than Diamond 1, but Diamond 2 will have more fire.

Recommendation

In this case I would recommend this diamond because Fielder wanted a diamond that maximizes on fire and still has a good amount of brilliance. With Diamond 1, he’s getting a near-H&A with unique proportions that tailor to his preferences. You can’t get better than that!

If you guys have any questions on these diamonds or want to share your opinion, please feel free to leave a comment!