Q: First off, I have a lot of praise for the site. There’s a lot of expert sites out there but yours has been the most helpful. Your articles are all quite informative and accessible for laymen to the business. And most importantly, all your advice seems to be internally consistent which suggests that the advice is legit. I already feel that you’ve helped steer me away from the debacle of buying a cheaper EGL cert stone.

So the situation that I’m in is that I’m looking for a round stone somewhere near 1 carat for this Verragio mount. I don’t have a problem with being just below 1 ct to avoid the price cliff that seems to be there.

http://www.verragio.com/Verragio-Engagement-Rings/Insignia-Engagement-Rings

I was really excited to see in another post that you are familiar with Verragio. With the side diamonds that they use (listed as F-G) I want to make sure that my diamond choice doesn’t look funny by color comparison. That’s my only constraint for color.

As far as clarity goes, I don’t care too much about the grade as long as it’s eye clean. The James Allen tool is fun to look at but I’m afraid that I can’t tell from it whether the stone will be eye clean or not.

My budget is in the 5-6k USD range. I can stretch a little bit if it’s for a really great stone though.

My first shot at looking on James Allen turned up this one. I think it looks like a find. What do you make of it? Any other stones you would suggest?

http://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/G-SI1-Excellent-Cut-Round-Diamond-1522237.asp

Thanks in advance for any advice! I appreciate any help you can give. Read More…