Is it OK to buy a diamond online as long as it has a certificate
Harriet Kelsall discusses some of the problems of relying on buying a diamond based only on what its certificate says.
Any company selling loose diamonds over the internet, or selling mass produced rings containing their diamonds, will tell you that it is absolutely essential to have a diamond certificate. They will then follow this by telling you that all of their diamonds have certificates so you can be sure that you are getting what you think you are getting. They intend for this to make you trust that their diamonds will be just right for you and intend for this to completely solve your worries and therefore go ahead with the buying their diamond based, then, only on the price.
Whilst I wholeheartedly agree that If you insist on buying your diamond in this way, you should get it with a certificate, I rarely advise my own customers to worry about whether they choose a diamond from us which does or doesn’t have a certificate. I advise that we simply choose the best diamond regardless of whether it has a certificate or not. And actually, for the same budget, you can normally afford a bit more diamond if you decide on one without a certificate. But of course this can only work if you completely trust who you are buying from – they need to have a shop and a reputation at the very least.
In order to explain what I mean, I will first answer a few questions that you may have in your mind…
What is a diamond certificate?
A diamond certificate or diamond grading report, is essentially a piece of paper listing information about a diamond and can be issued to go with a specific diamond by an experienced diamond grader. It is a list of measurements and conclusions issued by an independent gem laboratory on various aspects and characteristics of the diamond in question. So a diamond with a certificate is a loose diamond (or one in a little packet) accompanied by its piece of paper.
A full certificate will go through all sorts of details about the diamond including the cut and cutting style, the weight, colour, clarity, polish, symmetry, fluorescence etc and will include diagrams of the stone including positions of any inclusions.
Does a certificate cover all of the characteristics of a diamond then?
Absolutely not. This is a bit like saying that you can entirely trust that a beautiful view will be lovely by explaining (without seeing it) that it has a certain proportion of sky, land, colours, sun, etc. Every natural diamond is completely unique. So one G VVS2 0.50cts most certainly won’t appear just like another. I read a great analogy about this recently in jewellery focus magazine – a jeweller said that when his customers say that they want to buy a diamond that has to be, for example, an E colour, VS clarity and 0.50cts in weight, he tells them that this is like saying that they want to choose a blonde to marry by describing her vital statistics! There is much more to a diamond than just what appears on the certificate. This is why to me, a certificate is not important as long as you totally trust who you are buying from and that they will, themselves, describe the quality of the diamond themselves on your invoice. More importantly is to have somebody helping you to find the right and most beautiful diamond for you.
Does having a certificate make a diamond more expensive than one without?
Inevitably yes – the diamond has been through a lab, time has been spent on it and expensive bits of kit have been used to examine it – these and the wages of their staff have to be paid for. So this will generally mean that you are spending some of your budget for the diamond on this piece of paper. I usually reckon at about £100-£150 more for a stone with a full certificate as compared with another without.
Would this certificate give me peace of mind then?
The thing with diamonds, is that minuscule factors about the diamond which are not detectable by the human eye of anybody other than an expert can vastly effect the price of the stone. So if you aren’t sure what you are buying or more importantly who you are buying from, this certificate can give you peace of mind that you are actually buying what you think you are buying. Although the criteria on the certificate certainly won’t identify whether the stone is beautiful or not, it will ensure that you are at least getting the vital statistics that you are paying for. This is the reason that the big diamond websites all bang on about their certificates – they know that you are not going to feel confident to buy a diamond from them unless their diamonds are accompanied by certificates. They rarely even have a shop front, let alone a history and reputation to give you faith that what they say is an H SI1 ideally cut diamond is that and so of course you need to insist on having a certificate. They will eliminate telling you that the certificate is, of course, not all that you need to define a diamond’s beauty.
How come there are different types of certificates?
There are quite a few different diamond laboratories who issue diamond certificates. The main ones that we come across here are issued by the GIA, IGI, HRD, AGS and EGL. They are, in my own opinion, all equally valid if you want to have a full diamond certificate.
The GIA (The Gemological Institute of America) are the people who created and introduced the international grading system that is now almost universally used by other gem labs. This is a fantastic grading system because, as a jewellery designer, once I know and trust my diamond dealers and trust that they have the same eye for beauty that I do, these factors allow us to communicate on diamonds really well. Possibly because the GIA invented this grading system, a bit of a snobbery has developed with some people’s marketing proclaiming that if you they are going to buy a diamond it must not only have a certificate but also that the certificate must be a GIA certificate. They are a really good lab and have developed a very good reputation – but the other gem labs that I mention above also have good reputations and I think it is rather like comparing a degree from one top university with another really. And actually a certificate issued by one of the others can occasionally be a little less costly than one with a GIA certificate in my experience. This isn’t always the case though.
We can also get you something that we call a ‘mini’. These are currently being issued by The Birmingham Assay Office and they cover just the basics of weight, colour and clarity without going into advanced information about cut proportions etc. These can be issued quite quickly to a loose diamond for about £40 ish.
Of course we can always ask our diamond dealer to only send us only certificated stones for a customer to choose between if they prefer and are certain that they really must have one, but we find that once we explain this to our customers, they often choose to spend the extra money that they ‘save’ from not necessarily having a diamond with a certificate on extra weight or diamond quality rather than requesting a certificate no matter what. Also they know that this means that we will find them the best stones for them to choose from without being limited to only looking at diamonds with certificates. Then our selection of diamonds that will be right for their design and budget may include a very slightly lighter or lower quality certificated stone, a slightly larger/better quality one without etc.
OK, tell me a horror story then…
With the internet opening up the world in such an amazing way, we are getting lots of customers coming to us who have already bought their own diamonds without talking with us. This is fine if this is what they want and we are always happy to apply our design expertise and design a lovely ring with their diamond. But, this can be frustrating to us, especially when we think that we could have got the customer a much better stone. A customer recently came to me with a D IF emerald cut diamond weighing about 0.60cts that he had bought over the internet for his engagement ring. He had done this before he had found us. I looked at the diamond which had a perfect certificate and didn’t know what to say to him. It was the flattest looking and most lifeless diamond I had ever seen. In wanting to do his best for his future fiancée, he had done all of the homework he thought he needed in half an hour on the internet, decided he was an expert and then had bought a diamond with the prefect certificate. It had the perfect vital statistics but it had absolutely no personality and I wouldn’t have chosen it for one of our rings even if it had cost £50 (which it…didn’t).
Summary
Judging a diamond is about making sure the basics are there for you and then looking at the life of a diamond. I could show you two diamonds with identical certificates one of which is beautiful, lively, sparkly and fiery and the other of which is just OK (except I can’t actually show you those…because I didn’t buy the one that was just OK!!!).
This is why I wholeheartedly believe that you should not buy your diamond from the internet like this! The only way is to be guided by an expert who isn’t just trying to sell you something themselves. Just because you spent an evening surfing the net and finding out about the 4 Cs doesn’t make you able to pick the very best diamond for you and for the best possible value for money. I know you are thinking ‘yeah well she would say that’. I really wouldn’t say that if I didn’t mean it – there would be no point (pardon the pun….).
Unlike these online competitors we don’t hold loads of diamonds in stock (the insurance would be terrifying for a start!) so we aren’t trying to get you to buy the stone that we happen to have in stock. Instead we listen to your requirements, work out the design for you and then source the right diamond for you. This is why I feel I can advise on this because I can see this objectively. We will only choose a diamond that we think has that ‘X’ factor for you. You get to have your input and can, of course, come to choose from a selection from us if you would like to be involved in choosing or proposing with the loose diamond. But we will hold your hand through the whole process (don’t worry – not literally…) and make sure that you get the right stone for the most important jewellery purchase you will probably ever make.
I already have a ring – can I get a certificate for it now?
In order to grade a stone, a gemologist needs the stone to be unmounted. So if your diamond is already in an engagement ring, this would mean unsetting the diamond, getting the diamond cleaned and graded and then reset back into the ring. This is always possible but may require quite a bit of work by a good jeweller depending on the style and quality of the mount (or ring) that is setting the stone. Having a full certificate issued to the stone will give you lots of information about the diamond and at the moment will normally cost in the region of about £150. Or a mini will cost you more like about £40 or £50.
Do I need a diamond certificate for insurance?
No – what your insurers will need is your invoice because, if you just purchased your diamond, it is worth what you paid for it. When we give you an invoice for a ring, for example, we will say on this invoice that the ring contains an H SI1 quality 0.69cts white diamond for example. This gives the insurers everything that they need in order to be sure that they can cover you to replace it if it is lost or stolen like for like in vital statistics at least.
Even though many of the diamond sites advertise that you are getting a fantastic discount when you buy the diamond it really is worth what you pay for it and could easily be replaced for that…this is just hype trying to make you think you are getting such a bargain that you mustn’t delay! With diamonds, I genuinely believe that you almost always get what you pay for.
Why should I believe you?
Because I am right!!! Seriously – we are bespoke jewellery design specialists which means that we can equally well just set your diamond as well as provide you with a diamond and then mount it beautifully. So we aren’t trying to flog you our diamonds! I have been looking at diamonds all of my life and could tell the difference between a diamond and a cubic zircon when I was 4 (I’m not super-clever, it isn’t hard – it really isn’t – I’m sure I could teach you how in just a few minutes!). I have been using my eyes to evaluate diamonds and gemstones all of my life. I have found that over the years the more you get bogged down in data, the less you see. You need to have a basic understanding of the data and then examine the diamonds for fire which isn’t something you can define on a certificate.