How to Buy a Diamond

Transcripts

<p>Ronnie Mervis: Hi, I am Ronnie Mervis, from Mervis Diamond Importers, the leading diamond importer in Washington DC, the Nations capital. I am going to have the pleasure of walking you through the diamond buying process.</p><p>I am going to talk to you about how to select a diamond. What the items are, that you should look for. We are going to explain the four c&#39;s, tell you how to make an intelligent choice, warn you of the pitfalls you should be aware of and help you get to the point where you make an intelligent, educated the decision about a very important purchase, your diamond.</p><p>The many different things you should take into account when you are looking for the right place to buy the diamond and remember, what you buy is as important as where you buy the diamond. I think the most important thing is find somebody, find a source, where you know that firm has been around for a longtime, has made it to the top of the ratings list and is likely to be there for a long time.</p><p>Please remember that a firm that got to the top, got there by being best, not because they just wanted to be there. It is very important that the organization you deal with will be there for a long time to come because there are many things that you might want to back to them for regarding the diamond purchase. You may want to trade it up later; you want to know that the firm is still going to be there, you want to know what the trade policies are, will they give you back everything you paid for the diamond or they ask you to take a loss on it. You might find later on that the diamond is chipped, when did the chip occur is this an accident that occurred after you have purchased the diamond or is it in fact the fault that was there, when you acquired the diamond. The certificate will certainly show, if it was on the diamond at the time of purchase or not and if not the firm would still be there to deal with it when you will get there.</p><p>We always believe that a diamond is a very specialized purchase. The best diamonds come from firms that specialize in diamonds. In other words firms that don&#39;t deal with a lot of other extraneous gift items like silver-flames, watch-batteries, glass and alike, go for the experts.</p><p>Ask the firm, what its policies are? Where do they get the diamonds from? Are they in compliance with rules and regulations regarding the banning of diamonds which come from conflict areas abroad? Do they have color stones against which you can match yours? When the firm tells you that a diamond is a certain color ask them, how one would know that? Is it backed up an independent certificate? If it is an independent certificate, does the diamond come from a recognized gem lab? Which labs, which labs do they use, which labs do they not use? Are there master stones, so that you can check for yourself, the color of your stone against the stone which is supposedly being sold to you as a certain color.</p><p>Ask them what instruments they have for you to see the diamond? Will you be able to see it under magnification? What extent of magnification? 10 times or 20 or 30, ask what the standard is, ask whether they have microscopes, microscopes may not be a good thing, microscopes are very difficult for you to set the diamond up and actually turn it around to see it. If you are being forced to use a microscope as opposed to a simple jewelers loupe, the best way to see it is through a jewelers loupe. This is one; its a very simple instrument that allows you to pick up the diamond and look at it through the loupe, get ten times magnification on it, but the beautiful thing about a simple instrument like a loupe is that, you can turn the diamond and see the back, you can see the edge, you can see the front, you can see it any way you want to see it without a whole lot of adjustments to the setting.</p><p>These are all of the good things and then more than that, make sure that the diamond dealer, whom you deal with, has a large collection, you would like to know that that dealer, really is in the business and can show you many different stones of all different colors, all different shapes, all different sizes, all there present for you to see.</p><p>It doesnt really help much, if the person you deal with is, well could sell you whatever you want and I can it you at a great price, except I don&#39;t have one and I can get it from my cousin in Belgium or has an uncle in New York, he has a college friend in Chicago and you have a whole contingency plan of what is going to happen. None of which ever takes place and if it does, you are going to see one stone which you are expected to buy and if you decide that you don&#39;t like it for any reason, you put somebody to a lot of work, who is going to get mad at you for not buying the diamond and right there you are under an obligation.</p><p>We believe that buying a diamond is an important purchase. It&#39;s your money, it&#39;s your hard earned money which goes into it and you should be able to make any decision that you wanted to make without undue pressure on you for wrong reason. That gives you a basic idea of what you should look for in selecting the jeweler, before you select the diamond. So, before I sign off, I would like to remind you, stay tuned, don&#39;t go away, we have a lot of interesting stuff to talk about and the next clip we are going to talk about, how you would select the diamond shape. </p>