I’m looking for a 1ct round diamond. I’m willing to spend extra to get great color / clarity on top of excellent cut. I don’t really value having a diamond larger than 1ct, but a larger diamond at a similar price would be fine as well.
My current top contender is this one – https://www.jamesallen.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut/1.00-carat-f-color-vs1-clarity-excellent-cut-sku-11148069
As far as I can tell, the specs check out: GIA triple excellent; F color with faint fluorescence; VS1 clarity. Also based on the cut estimator here it falls within AGS ideal (56% table, 35 crown angle, 40.8 pavilion angle). $7210 seems to be within about $600 of the “efficient frontier”, which seems to be a diamond that only scores “very good” on symmetry (James Allen 11191776).
My main concern is that I don’t really know how to qualitatively evaluate the cut. Does everything look good here?
PS: This site is really cool! I have one suggestion for the diamond screener – it would great to allow searching for diamonds that are at least (not just exactly) a certain color or clarity.
I like 11148069 more than 10979437. The cut looks good.
11191776 is cheaper because the clouds are causing strain, not the VG symmetry. I think VG symmetry is fine as long as the optical symmetry looks good (shows the arrows).
You must have done a lot of searching, the only one that I liked as an alternative is the one below. It trades one clarity grade for two color grades.
Shape,Carat,Color,Clarity,Cut,Price (USD),Affiliate Link
Round,1,D,VS2,Excellent,7390,https://www.diamondscreener.com/ja/loose-diamonds/round-cut/1.00-carat-d-color-vs2-clarity-excellent-cut-sku-10429333
The lab diamond prices page implements your suggestion. I did it for labs because there were fewer lab diamonds in each strata (although JA seems to be expanding their inventory over time). For naturals, there were many choices and the graph slows down with too many points. I limited it to one combination at a time for loading time and responsiveness. But I may consider expanding natural to be more like lab.
This was another one that I was looking at. Seems very similar, although $300 more: https://www.jamesallen.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut/1.00-carat-f-color-vs1-clarity-excellent-cut-sku-10979437