Costco diamonds and 2% off

Around Valentine's Day, CNN's Anderson Cooper did a piece on diamond vendors, and the gist was that the quality of diamonds at Costco was about the same as you get from Tiffany & Co. Cut wasn't discussed at length, as I recall. I think the main point was to illustrate that you are paying extra for the special touches at a store like T&Co... the box, the name, etc. (no kidding). Then, on Good Morning America, they've compared diamonds bought at Tiffany's and those bought at Costco. They had an expert gemologist appraise them. He found the 16,000 Tiffany one to appraise for 10,000 (but comes along with the "Tiffany name" and guarantee etc) and the 6,000 Costco 1ct to appraise for 8,000, and he remarked that it was a nice stone.

As unromantic as it sounds, I've decided to explore Costco's jewelry deals. They've responded to my email by saying that their prices are often way below those found at B&M's and internet stores, that they sell diamonds that fit "ideal" proportions and their mark-up is only 8%. Costco's executive members also get another 2% off all purchases, which seems to bring the price of their diamonds way down. Costco's unlimited return policy applies to diamonds as well, so it seems like you can purchase a diamond from them and then upgrade it at any time. Is anybody out there aware of any additional deals/coupon that can be used with Costco's diamonds? Also, do any of you have any comments about the diamond quality at Costco?

Edit: Is it possible to maximize Costco's deals or any other diamond deals by using any promotions, financing deals, etc...? Also, as far as upgrading down the road goes, is it better to be focusing on investment quality diamonds (whatever they are) to make sure that we maximize their value in the future, if/when we decide to upgrade?

Met a cutter from Irael on eBay. Deal with a cutter!!! My wifes stone cost $1500 but appraised Rappaport right under 10. Rap is always way high so it would have been about 6k in a mall store and I suppose around 4k in a smaller deal based jeweler shop.

BlueNile or Amazon has very comparable prices and WAY more selection than costco.

Come on, if you can meet a cutter on eBay, why can't Costco meet 100 cutters in their store?
yeah, send me your stone, I will cut it for you and give you 50% discount!

Susannah said: SnakeEyes09 said: DamnoIT said: Met a cutter from Irael on eBay. Deal with a cutter!!! My wifes stone cost $1500 but appraised Rappaport right under 10. Rap is always way high so it would have been about 6k in a mall store and I suppose around 4k in a smaller deal based jeweler shop.That sounds very interesting. How can a regular person meet a reputable cutter? Which lab certified the stone? Would you mind posting all the info about it? If Costco is correct and their mark-up is only 8% over the purchase price, how would a $1.5K stone sell for $4K at a competitively priced store?

I think part of your answer is that the cutter is going to cut out a lot of steps of middlemen, the cutter doesn't directly sell to Costco, I don't think, next it would go to a dealer.

You can meet a reputable cutter off eBay, look at feedback. This guy was as standup as it gets. Basically I secured the stone with my credit card and he overnighted for my inspection and told me to have others check it which is how I got the 10k Rappaport - could have rejected it and owed nothing. It was EGL certed and the cut was some of the finest the jewelers have seen. He emailed me the cert and other info for my inspection before he even sent it, it was for an 1.02 oval (he accicently sold it so he gave me a 1.04 for the same price because that was the next closest he had - tell me thats not the right way to treat a customer ). Bash me all you want I really don't care,if you want to go through pricescope they are the 2nd best choice - I would have paid about $800 more thorugh them for similar options and that is still a good deal in comparison. Anyone who PM's me requesting info will get it.

FYI: When I refer to cutter I am speaking of that persons profession, they did have the stone too and I didn't send my own to have them do the work.

Do any of these discount diamond dealers guarantee a trade-in price? I've spoken with a recently married friend of mine and one of the reasons he went to a retail establishment is because they were willing to BUY-BACK his wife's ring at the price he paid should he decide to upgrade.

Does CostCo or any of these other sites offer such a guarantee? Granted, if I can save 50% off of "retail" (say $7.5K off of a $15K ring), that means I can spend an extra 50% + the time value of those savings ($7.5K + interest) should I upgrade in the future.

My GF doesn't seem like the type to hound me for an upgrade in 5 years but this is something worth investigating. After all, some of my friends who have been married for only 2 years have already begun to be pestered. Granted, they did marry worthless, gold-digging tit-bags...
-g

Check out recommended vendors from Pricescope or Diamondtalk and pick one of the highly recommended people there.

I just recently purchased a 1ct Ideal cut with GIA cert from a vendor at a fraction of the price of any local B&M shops. I even had it independently appraised and it came out much higher than I expected. The nice thing about the vendor was that he's a former GIA certifier and has a great reputation on pricescope. He even told me to pass on the first three stones he brought in, and finally picked out another stone which happened to cost less.

Some more notes (sorry for all the posts, I just finished doing all this so it is a topic still fresh in memory)

1) Don't buy a stone online without a certificate. GIA and AGS are the best, the rest have spotty reputations.
2) Get it independently appraised when you get it. Be sure to pick an independent appraiser (not one who also sells diamonds as they may be biased and try to sell you on one of their stones). This will let you know that the stone matches the certificate.
3) Forget the numbers and make sure you can view it yourself with some time to return it with no penalty. Sometimes the specs are all perfect but the stone will look bad.

FYI - get the best bang for your buck when buying diamdons.

Clarity - go for SI2, you will need a loupe to see any inperfection

Color - G-H for a bright - I-J for a little less

Cut - settle for nothing less then good to fine rating, check the various items (Table, Depth ect..) against the acceptable range for your stones cut to ensure proper measurements.

Weight - a lot of times just a status marker - not always hugely imporatant, you can have a 3/4ct fire better and look beter and bigger then a 1ct if the Clarity, color, and cut are in better states.

Never consider a diamond as an investment - they really don't hold huge value. Debeers regulates this market and the US is it's primary taret. In other countries diamonds take a seat back to various other precious materials.

Search the Deal Discussion forum using Diamond -citi, there are several threads on diamonds. Isn't that where this belongs?

Thank you all very much for your posts. Please keep 'em coming! So is it possible to maximize Costco's deals by using any promotions, financing deals, etc...? Also, as far as upgrading down the road goes, is it better to be focusing on investment quality diamonds (whatever they are) to make sure that we maximize their value in the future, if/when we decide to upgrade?

DamnoIT said: FYI - get the best bang for your buck when buying diamdons.

Clarity - go for SI2, you will need a loupe to see any inperfection

Color - G-H for a bright - I-J for a little less

Cut - settle for nothing less then good to fine rating, check the various items (Table, Depth ect..) against the acceptable range for your stones cut to ensure proper measurements.

Weight - a lot of times just a status marker - not always hugely imporatant, you can have a 3/4ct fire better and look beter and bigger then a 1ct if the Clarity, color, and cut are in better states.

Never consider a diamond as an investment - they really don't hold huge value. Debeers regulates this market and the US is it's primary taret. In other countries diamonds take a seat back to various other precious materials.

this is all 100% dependent on the lab that rated it as well. An AGS rated diamond at a G color and SI1 imperfection level will look VASTLY different than a GIA rated stone of the same quality. They're not all equal.

SnakeEyes09 said: Thank you all very much for your posts. Please keep 'em coming! So is it possible to maximize Costco's deals by using any promotions, financing deals, etc...? Also, as far as upgrading down the road goes, is it better to be focusing on investment quality diamonds (whatever they are) to make sure that we maximize their value in the future, if/when we decide to upgrade?

You can double dip by using the 2% Executive Platinum and an AMEX Blue 1.5% or Costco True Rewards AMEX 1% to get another 3-3.5% off. Buying online can save you sales tax which is what killed the deal at Costco for me. Depending on your sales tax, this can save you a lot!

Regardless of where you buy your diamond, they go through a heavy depreciation (around 40-50%) once they leave the store. If you really think an upgrade is in your future, go for a store that has a lifetime tradeup policy. You likely won't be able to make up the difference in price.

I've previously posted the following in DD, but, since it bears on the discussion here, am posting it here as well.

While I have taken the liberty of posting my opinions below, they are anything but gospel. Please feel free to agree/disagree or introduce additional considerations into this discussion. Please also note that this is NOT intended to be yet another basic 4C's tutorial. Instead, I presume that most of the readers have already gone through the trouble of educating themselves on these very basic things and are just looking for a way to correctly apply this knowledge. For the more advanced tutorials, I would strongly encourage people to review information posted on Pricescope (www.pricescope.com), which is the preeminent diamond buying forum.

Purchase considerations
Clarity
As long as the stone in question is eye-clean, I do not see any particular reason to pay for higher clarity. Now, the "eye clean" status of the stone will certainly depend on its shape (it would be more difficult to see the same inclusion in a round brilliant stone than in, let's say, an emerald), size (it's easier to see inclusions in larger diamonds), cut (the better the cut, the more it will obscure the inclusions), location of the inclusion and the type of the inclusion (black inclusions are much easier to spot than white feathers). For round brilliants, quite a few SI2 stones, especially the ones with ideal cuts, are perfectly eye clean and, therefore, present a great value.

Now, some people just have a personal preference for a stone with higher clarity because they equate it with "purity" or just like seeing a very clean certificate. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this personal preference as long as the person realizes that others will never be able to discern the higher clarity without magnification.

Color
As for color, again, some shapes show color more than others (round brilliants typically show color the least). Further, the quality of the cut makes a huge difference here -- for round brilliants, an ideal cut (which I'll discuss below) will often make diamonds face up at least one color grade higher than its certificated grade.

Just like with clarity, some people have a personal preference for the highest color money can buy. Unlike high clarity, which cannot be discerned with a naked eye, however, most people can tell the difference between icy white D color and, let's say, J. Differences in color can also often be discerned by comparing stones next to each other, which is the reason that most people think of high color as more important than high clarity. Depending on your age, personal preference and visual acuity, many people think of H and I colored round brilliants as presenting the best value for the money. Some J colored round brilliants also face up very white and, therefore, are a great option.

Carat weight
Carat is the most objective criteria of the 4C's. It is simply the weight of the stone, which does NOT equal size. For instance, a cutter can increase the carat size of the stone by leaving more weight on the bottom (called a "pavillion") -- such a stone would cause you to pay for weight you can't see and the extra weight can dramatically alter the angles of the stone, making it appear dull and lifeless.

Cut
Cut is an extremely important variable since it can really make your stone sparkle or make it look very dull. Both GIA and AGS labs now offer "cut" ratings in their new certificates, although their definitions of differ somewhat. Pricescope offers a free Cut Advisor tool (http://www.pricescope.com/cutadviser.asp), which can also be extremely helpful in evaluating the quality of the cut.

People generally like to pay for things that they can see, which in the diamond context means that they want an eye-clean (SI clarity and up), white looking (H-I color and up) and very sparkly diamond. So, once the first two attributes (eye-clean and white) of the diamond are satisfied, cut becomes absolutely paramount since it can really make a diamond appear full of fire and sparkle.

The quality of the cut depends and is evaluated not just based on the basic measurements (depth %, table %) but also the crown and pavillion angles. When online retailers say "ideal" or "very good" cut in their online listings, they are often just guesstimating the cut based on the depth and the table. It is quite unwise to rely on such a guesstimate -- instead, you have to know what the diamond angles are (if they are not listed on the report, they can be obtained by a Sarin or an Ogi machine), so you can then be in a much better position to evaluate the performance of the diamond.

People should go to solid, reputable B&M retailers and compare various cuts to see what's important to them. Yes, most B&M jewelers have lighting set up in a way to add maximum brilliance to even the dullest stones, but the differences should be noticeable anyway. How much you should pay for these differences is up to you, however. Most people, including me, can see very little visual difference between branded signature cuts and ideal/excellent cuts that don't quite qualify for the "signature" series. Going with such a cut allows you to save serious money while still purchasing a great performer. On the other hand, I can also see a significant difference between most of the ideal cuts and the lesser cuts and try to stay away from the latter.

The reason that the cut does not qualify as "ideal" is also very important -- an overly deep cut, in addition to making the stone less sparkly, also makes it face up smaller (i.e., the stone looks smaller than its carat weight suggests it should be).


A current collection of active/archived FW threads that discuss these and others considerations can be found below:

Buy the engagement ring w/o breaking the bank at Boscovs!
Guide on how to buy loose diamonds at wholesale prices.
Blue Nile
Diamond engagement ring advice

Make sure you also use the ICU and Brilliancescope. A near perfect diamond might not have much scintillation or brilliance. These machines statistically gather what our eyes find appealing about these overpriced stones. The POW! SPARKLE! WHAM!. Any real dealer will have leased one or the other. If not, run.

Always compare the diamond(s) to your eye of course. no machine can replace that. Thats why these places will ship you stones for review. or to a local dealer/broker.

I bought my wife's engagement diamond ring at Costco.

I agree with the above statements that you have to know the specs of the diamond you are interested in.

I will emphasize that cut is truly the diffrence between a dull stone and one with "fire."

When I received the diamond, I opened it up at the store and the woman next to me let out a gasp to when she saw the stone and the way it reflected light.

My wife was very happy with it and she still keeps getting compliments on it.

Hope this helps!

You mean a cutter from Israel? Let me guess, cert was EGL-Israel. In which case, it's overgraded in every category and you probably paid about fair value for it, considering that EGL-Israel diamonds are worth about half of identical grade GIA/AGS.


DamnoIT said: Met a cutter from Irael on eBay. Deal with a cutter!!! My wifes stone cost $1500 but appraised Rappaport right under 10. Rap is always way high so it would have been about 6k in a mall store and I suppose around 4k in a smaller deal based jeweler shop.

I too like Costco's diamond buying program. In the end, a diamond comes back to numbers, so I have no problem with buying one off the net or unseen.

seems like a great thread, but maybe belongs in Deal Discussion

Blluitt said: You mean a cutter from Israel? Let me guess, cert was EGL-Israel. In which case, it's overgraded in every category and you probably paid about fair value for it, considering that EGL-Israel diamonds are worth about half of identical grade GIA/AGS.


DamnoIT said: Met a cutter from Irael on eBay. Deal with a cutter!!! My wifes stone cost $1500 but appraised Rappaport right under 10. Rap is always way high so it would have been about 6k in a mall store and I suppose around 4k in a smaller deal based jeweler shop.

I too like Costco's diamond buying program. In the end, a diamond comes back to numbers, so I have no problem with buying one off the net or unseen.

I would argue the half price vs GIA/AGS statement. I did like the fact that is apprasied for almost 7 times the price I paid from a local jeweler. Other stones in the same class (actually looked at some that were a but worse) were hitting around 4K low and 6K high. When I comared on pricescope I found one similar w/ EGL hitting right around 2300 ($800 more then what I paid). Regardless what really matters is that my wife loves it and she respects the fact that I didn't finance and end up owing another huge debt coming into marriage.

DamnoIT said: I did like the fact that is apprasied for almost 7 times the price I paid from a local jeweler. Diamond appraisals are notoriously inflated, so you could've easily found an appraiser willing to give you a value that was 10 times the price. The important thing to remember is that NOONE buys, sells or trades diamonds based on the "full retail" appraised value, so that value is quite useless. Not only that, but if you insured it through a company other than Chubb, your insurance premiums would be based on the full appraisal value, so you'd be significantly overpaying your premiums. In the event of a loss, however, the insurance company would only offer a comparable diamond, so the inflated premiums would not in any way allow you to get a more expensive diamond.

Other stones in the same class (actually looked at some that were a but worse) were hitting around 4K low and 6K high. When I comared on pricescope I found one similar w/ EGL hitting right around 2300 ($800 more then what I paid).Prices of EGL certed diamonds (especially if it was EGL Israel or Belgium) are all over the board because EGL is so inconsistent and, therefore, the certification is a veeeeeeery approximate guide to market value. If the diamond you saw on Pricescope was correctly certified by EGL USA and yours was overgraded by EGL Israel, the Pricescope diamond would certainly be worth more.

Regardless what really matters is that my wife loves it and she respects the fact that I didn't finance and end up owing another huge debt coming into marriage.I wholeheartedly agree with you there! As long as you and your wife love it and you were financially responsible in the way you spent money, that's all that matters! Unless you absolutely love the look of your diamond, regardless of where it comes from and what the certification paper says, the best valued diamond in the world just won't make you happy.

makeinu said: These two statements seem to conflict. Can anyone explain?I am not sure I see a conflict between these statements. Costco's regular return policy applies to diamond purchases (keep in mind that Costco won't sell loose diamonds; although, their cheapest setting is only about $100 or so, so you can have it reset without wasting too much money on a setting you don't want).