Renting Diamond Jewelry for Parties and Weddings

Looking like a Star is cheaper then you think!  Renting Diamond Jewelry for parties or weddings  is much easier then one may have imagined.  The days of going to a Jeweler and begging them to rent or let you borrow a piece of jewelry to wear for your special occasion are over.

There are several well known Internet Jewelry Stores which let you rent diamond jewelry for your day in the spot light at reasonable prices.  Therefore, don't need to be a Hollywood or a Rock Star to look like one.  Consider that even Stars wear borrowed jewelry most of the time.  Who needs to buy diamond set of earrings, a necklace and a ring when one can be rented for less then a few percent of the cost.  Consider how many times you would wear such a set and how much time you would have to spend if you where to make such an investment.

What do you need to know about renting diamond jewelry.

• Work with a reputable and a dependable company.
• You need to receive the article on time.
• You need the piece of jewelry to be clean and in tact.
• You need to trust the company to charge you a fair price.

•  Select the Jewelry and make sure it is available for the dates you need it.
• Compare Prices
• Some articles are cheaper then others so the rental will be less.
• Consider how much is shipping
• Is there a discount for long term rentals?
• What are the late fees, the late fees could be expensive - consider that someone may be waiting for this article for their wedding.
•  Insurance 
• Diamond Jewelry is expensive, consider the coverage the jewelry store offers.
• Do you have to pay anything for insurance?
• Will there be a deductible if the piece is lost or stolen?
• Do you need to buy additional insurance?

Most jewelry companies have insurance and they will cover their losses but probably not yours.  Renting Jewelry may require you to take out an insurance policy with a low deductible, for the full price of the article at hand.  Consider the price and if is worth the effort.

Renting Diamond Jewelry is easy and not expensive.  Take a look at some of the offers from Adorn.com, they are really amazing.

Antique Diamond Cuts

Just published an article on Antique Diamond Cuts, comparing Old Mine and Old European Cut to the Modern Round Brilliant.  Although these diamonds have all of the same geometric properties, the difference is vast.   Read my article on Suite101.com, Antique Diamonds - Old European Cut VS Round Brilliant.

Diamond Alternatives Aritcle on Suite101

My second article on suite101 is about Diamond Alternatives for engagement rings.  I will discus even more options in greater detail in the next article.  For now this is a good place to start.  If you are considering CZ or Moissanite you MUST read the article first.

Engagement Rings for Dummies

So the time has come. The groom-to-be is now searching for that one, special engagement ring which symbolizes everything he knows about love. Should it be so complicated to choose the ring and diamond? Selecting the diamond cut, clarity, weight and color can take all the fun out of it. Is there a simple way to get past this gibberish?

Yes there is!

Engagement Ring Selection Comes First

To get past the annoyance of picking the right stone, many people choose to select the ring first and then try to match a stone to it. This works well for antique looking rings with detailed carvings or pave diamonds and rings with side stones. Princes, Asscher, Cushion and Emerald Cut diamonds are often chosen for these rings.


Statistically, round diamonds are the number one choice when it comes to engagement rings, most often for solitaire rings. Choosing the style of the ring is the fun part, it is done by observing and trying to predict the brides-to-be taste.


A Diamond's Price

After the groom-to-be has selected the style of the ring he plans buy, it is time to find a worthy diamond. A diamond's price is mainly based on its rarity. Diamonds which are larger, free of imperfections and have the least amount of color are the rarest. The price grows disproportionate to the size chart because a one carat diamond is much rarer than one that is half its size.


The other important thing that affects price is the cut; because a well cut diamond will reflect light better, causing a more pleasing appearance. A diamond which is well cut costs more, not because it's harder to cut a diamond well but because more rough is lost and the final stones come out smaller.


Fancy shapes are chosen when they yield more from a specific rough diamond. For this reason fancy shape diamonds are usually cheaper than round. According to the Jeweller magazine, in its March 2008 article titled "It's Hip to be Square: The Princess Cut", in a round stone fifty percent of the rough is wasted while in a princess cut diamond only twenty percent is wasted.


The certificate also affects the price of a diamond. Diamonds with GIA and AGS certificates usually cost more than same grade diamonds from other laboratories. This is most often because the other laboratories give higher grades to the stones than they really are. This makes the stones price be more then it would have been if properly graded but less expensive than the same grade stone from a reputable Lab.

Buying a Diamond

When the buyer knows what makes a diamond tick the process becomes easy. He will probably want the best cut, which is GIA Ideal or AGS 000, and likely a colorless stone, to which degree is up to the budget. Colors D to F are colorless face up, G and H colors are barely noticeable.

The clarity is also simple to understand. Diamonds with clarity of VS2 – Very Slightly Included and better should have no eye visible inclusions, so people are paying only for the rarity factor from this point on. It is up to each individual to pick how rare a diamond he desires. Diamonds in the SI – Slightly Included clarity grade range may or may not have eye visible inclusions; it can be hard to tell without seeing the stone. Diamonds in the I – Included range are commercial quality. They can be prone to breakage and have large easily visible inclusions.

In conclusion, buying an engagement ring should be simple when the buyer knows what he wants. Selecting the ring style, the diamond shape, cut grade, color and clarity will be simple now that the groom-to-be understands what is meant by each grade and how it affects the price and the final appearance.


Read more at Suite101: Engagement Ring Buying Guide http://engagement.suite101.com/article.cfm/engagement-rings-for-dummies#ixzz0m14Ijud9


Reprint from my article published on Suite101.com

Diamond Price - where to find out how much diamonds go for?

Public Diamond and Color Stone Price List
I just stumbled onto some useful info on JCKs website.  The JCK is the largest jewelry show which is hosted in Vegas. Got to their site and type "Gem Pricing Report" in the search box.  It doesn't give you too much info regarding if the stones listed are certified, good, bad... but you get the idea.


Alternative - Compare to Bluenile
Still the best alternative is to search BlueNile.com.  They have about 50,000 stones so you will definately find something in the category your looking for and be able to price it.  BlueNile is up to 10% over wholesale but don't expect to pay much less at any jeweler. 

Diamonds Cost So Much - Why is that?

Diamonds cost a lot of money, have you asked yourself why that is?  If you want to know, here is what makes the diamond a high priced "commodity."


Diamonds are Rare!  Diamonds of larger size, better quality and whiter color are even rarer.  Each one of these attributes is important in its own right and adds to the value of a diamond.  Other things which add value to a diamond are certificate, shape and cut.

Consider this, a cut diamond of one carat is produced from every 250 tons of soil which is mined.  It's much rarer then a half of a carat stone which is why the price for diamonds rises disproportionate to it's size.  Also, consider the fact that diamonds which are colorless, meaning fall into the D-F color range, only make up 2 percent of all diamonds mined.  Clarity is also important and Internally Flawless diamonds are quite rare.

Here it is important to note, for the diamond buyer to be.  You will not see a difference in diamonds of VS clarity and Flawless Diamonds without magnification.  At this point you really are paying for the fact that the diamond is more or less rare then the others.

Diamonds in the D to F color range are Colorless when observed from the top.  This means that you will not see a difference unless you take the diamond out of the ring and place in face down on a white surface next to a lighter color stone.  Diamonds in the G to J have slightly noticeable color, and most people recommend buying G or H for white metal settings, if you don't have a budget for F color.

The other thing which determines the price is a certificate.  Consider that when you're buying a diamond with a certificate which states that a diamond is better then it really is, you are only fooling yourself.  It is now understood that diamonds with GIA or AGS certificates have a premium, because these labs give the real grades.  EGL and many other laboratories give higher grades then the stone really is and that is why a stone with the same grades but from EGL cost less.

The last important thing which effects the price is the Shape and Cut.  They are listed here together because they are a part of the same issue.  When a round diamond is cut from a rough stone, fifty percent of the rough is wasted on average if the stone is cut in ideal proportions.  A diamond does not, however, need to be cut to ideal proportions.  Many cutters choose to cut a diamond slightly deeper to save more of the rough or shallower, so that two diamonds can be made from one rough stone.  As you can understand, the buyer has to pay for an ideal stone more because the cost is simply higher.  Shapes other then round are also chosen for the same reason, to save more of the rough.  A princess cut diamond, a square from top, is cut very similar to the round.  However, since a diamond crystal is square cutting a princess cut diamond saves eighty percent of the rough and wasts only twenty.  When a diamond crystal is not perfect, the cutter chooses the best shape to maximize yield.  For this reason fancy shape diamonds are always cheaper then the round. 


It's also worth mentioning that currently there is no cheap synthetic diamond on the market.  The cheapest synthetic, which is practically the same thing as a real flawless diamond, casts about one third of the price to make.  This and the demand for real diamonds helps keep the prices of diamonds high.

What's a Diamond

A Diamond is a carbon crystal.  Although graphite is also pure carbon, the two are quite the opposite of each other.  Diamond is the hardest stone of all, which means that it is durable to wear and that it can take a great polish where as graphite is soft and brittle.  Softer stones, all other stones, will not have such sharp (well formed) edges and the polish will wear off quicker. This is fundamental to understand because many people buy diamonds which have poor polish and don't even consider that this is the main reason why diamonds are valued.

Diamonds come in many colors and clarities.  The main colors are yellow, blue, pink, green, red, brown and colorless.  The biggest portion of natural diamonds fall into the colorless range which actually includes slightly yellow stones.  Diamonds which have enough yellow color to become desirable are considered fancy yellow and are worth much more then slightly yellow stones.  Diamonds in the colorless category are graded from D to F for colorless when looking at them face up.  Diamonds graded G to J are Very Faint Yellow when looking at them face up.  Colors K and up have easily observable amounts of yellow.  It is recommended to buy H color or better for white metals, I'd recommend G or better.

Most diamonds have some internal imperfections called inclusions.  There are many ways to call such inclusions, each specific type has its own name but it is not important for the consumer to know most of them.  It is important to realize that all diamonds which are in normal clarity range of SI or better are durable.  It is also very important to understand that diamonds of VS clarity and better have no eye visible inclusions, so no one will be able to tell a difference, without magnification, between a VS1(Very Slightly Included) diamond, a VVS1(Very Very Slightly Included) and a F(Flawless) diamond.  The difference in price is due to the rarity factor.  Do you want a diamond which is in the top 2 percent of all diamonds sold or in the top 0.3 percent?

So now you know something about diamonds. Read on...

Diamond Basics

Diamond Basics:

I will cover the following subjects in the near future, for now you can read about them here.

• What is a diamond?
• What diamond shape is best?
• What are the 4Cs?
• How important is a Diamond Certificate and which one is best?
• How much should you spend on a diamond?
• What is more important, diamonds color or clarity?
• Is size important?
• Will she like it?
• What to watch out for?
• Where to buy a diamond and why?
• Should you buy the diamond and the ring at the same place?
• If you have questions, post them here or e-mail me and I'll cover the subject as well.