Today I have been asked by Darren to review two diamonds that he has picked out for a pair of 1tcw earrings for his 25th anniversary. He’s working with a budget of $4500.

Here is the link to the diamonds.

Both of these diamonds are A Cut Above super-ideal so we’re looking at an extremely high quality pair of diamonds to start off with. I asked Darren how picky he wanted to get and he told me that his wife is going to be VERY PICKY so really the purpose of this review is to make sure that both of these stones stack up to the highest super-ideal standards and I’ll also take a look to see if he has any other options.

First impressions with the diamonds side by side is that the H-color stone faces up a tiny bit brighter even though it is the one with the lower color. This shows you the importance of cut over color especially in a pair of earrings where no one can see the body color in the diamonds. The reason why the H-color diamond looks brighter is because it has a slightly shallower crown angle. Also, with the overall shallower total depth, the pavilion of the H is likely to be closer to ideal as well.

Without the help of a magnified image, it is unlikely you’re going to be able to spot the difference in brightness here. In fact, the G-color stone looks like it will have more depth of field and better contrast. It’s one of these diamonds that are cut to make the arrows stand out a bit more, which is an effect that many people prefer. What’s also important is that by trading off almost a negligible amount of brilliance, you’re getting a much higher crown in the G-color diamond (15.6%) and this will help the diamond outperform in spot lighting.

The reason why you don’t really trade off too much brightness to achieve this higher crown is revealed by looking at the measurements. The G-color stone is about 0.02 – 0.04mm smaller in its diameter than the H. This is actually also a very small difference and almost to the point where it is within the margin of measurement error. Checking the weight ratio for both diamonds, the H has a weight ratio of 1.036 and the G has a weight ratio of 1.055. This tells us that the H color has very little wasted weight and pretty much all the proportions are ideal and balanced.

The G color stone tilts towards a more fiery look, and it trades off a bit of its spread to do this. But since it gives off a bit of spread and a bit of brightness to get a lot more fire, I consider this a good trade-off if you are interested in maximizing fire in the diamond.

What about the light performance images?

I spent most of this discussion on the proportions because both of these diamonds have picture perfect hearts and arrows and a perfect ASET. But since Darren wants to be super picky, I’ll just point out one minor issue. If you look at the edges of the hearts and arrows image on the G-color diamond, you will notice these white bow-tie looking patterns. A diamond with perfectly symmetrical upper girdles will have symmetrical looking bow-tie shapes all around this edge of the diamond.

Comparing the two diamonds, you can see that the upper girdles on the G are more symmetrical than in the H, but also the G isn’t perfectly symmetrical around the 7 to 10 o’clock area of the hearts and arrows image. The reason why this isn’t taken into account of in H&A evaluation is because it really has no real impact on the light performance of the diamond.

Recommendation

Both of these diamonds look really good. They are completely eye-clean and meet what I call a loupe-clean standard where you can’t even see the inclusions under magnified pictures and video and the inclusions will be extremely difficult to find even using a loupe.

The only remaining question is, are these the best diamonds out there for Darren’s budget?

The total cost of the pair of diamonds reviewed above was $3829. It’s clear that Darren’s budget should allow him to find a perfectly matching pair of GVS1s. Luck has it that there is a perfectly matched 0.501ct GVS1 diamond that is also an A Cut Above from Whiteflash.

Cut wise, this diamond is actually very similar to the H, but overall this is a better matching stone for a pair of earrings because it’s always a nice bonus that they are both perfectly matched. In fact, the size difference between the two Gs is actually even smaller. What I would suggest is taking the two diamonds that have the same spec, and try to negotiate with Whiteflash to try to get them to come down on price on the more expensive stone. Either way pairing the two G color diamonds will be within Darren’s budget, but there’s a good chance he will be able to secure even better pricing on the G that I have recommended.

Let me know what you guys think!