*Additional info posted on fancy yellow diamond grading terminology:  We've posted a copy of the EGL yellow color grading chart to give you a better understanding of the terms used to grade fancy yellow diamonds.  Additionally, we have posted some industry average pricing for comparable fancy vivid yellow natural diamonds on our loose yellow Takara page located here!  To give you a quick idea, a VS fancy vivid yellow mined (natural) 1.0ct oval diamond typically retails for $14625.  By comparison, our Takara Cultured 1.06ct Fancy vivid yellow orange Oval diamond (as shown above) sells for $2915.  

Sunday, Sept. 1st:  Asscher Asha� introductory pricing extended!:  We have not been able to keep up with the demand for the Asha� Asscher, and thus have extended the introductory pricing.  A number of customers have been waiting for the pricing on the matching Cartier reproduction ring before deciding on ordering an Asscher, and since we do not have the final pricing for this ring yet, it is another reason to extend the intro pricing.  Thus, the $150/ct pricing will stand until we have been able to fill the volume of pre-orders and have inventory stocked.  Our loose Asha� Asscher page is here!

Saturday, August 31st:  Updated poll for Takara Cultured diamond slogan!:  We've taken the top two slogans from the original poll, and have added three more slogans suggested by visitors to the site (thank you to all three of you for the suggestions!) to create the final poll to decide the slogan for Takara's.  The poll has been reset, so please re-vote based on the final selections - our poll is here!

*Trellis Princess Wedding Set - Waxes completed!:  We've completed the waxes for a matched Trellis wedding band - the band will be available as metal only, or with  4 brightset round diamonds, or 'diamond encrusted', where there are 4 diamonds on the top, and tapering diamonds running down the sides of the band.  Photo's will help clarify, we hope to have photos from a finished sample on the site the week after next.

*Takara news:  Two new cutters hired:  We are proud to announce that we have hired two new diamond cutters to help us in the production of our Takara diamonds.  Both are from South Africa, with 37 and 36 years of diamond cutting experience respectively.  

*Cartier ring update:  We are late....:  Unfortunately, we were not able to complete the master Cartier reproduction ring on Friday as hoped, we'll have photos next week, and hope to have complete pricing as well at that point.

*Nice Asha� feedback:  A recent customer wrote us and we wanted to share their feedback (with their permission) - thanks to that customer for allowing us to post their email!

"My platinum, antique-style semi-mount (into which you set a two carat Asha� round) arrived today, and it is stunning. I am spending so much time admiring my new ring, I am finding it hard to get things done. I feel like a new bride-- after twenty years of marriage! I am thrilled.

I spent many months planning this ring...searching for the perfect setting, exploring your web site for the ideal stone. I truly have my "dream" ring.

Thank you so much for your wonderful product, your excellent web site, and your outstanding customer service. Better Than Diamond has made a dream come true."

Thursday, August 29th:  Congratulations, you are now our new VP of marketing!:  Since we don't have a VP of marketing, and we have been wrestling with a slogan to help brand our Takara cultured diamonds (all colors, white, yellow, blue), who better to make our new VP than you?  We've placed a number of possible slogans in our user poll, and would like to get your vote on which slogan you like the best...or if you don't like any of them, feel free to suggest your own on our message boards, and we'll add them to the poll!  Enjoy the prestige of your new VP role, and make your decision in our latest poll here!   

*Additional jeweler added in the US who will be carrying Asha�:  We're pleased to also announce that The Jewelry Forest in Dallas, Texas will now be carrying our Asha� diamond simulant.  We have a lot of customers in Texas, and if you are near Dallas, you can pop by to see an Asha� in person.  They are a true brick and mortar, with no current website, but offer high-end custom jewelry design, and have a full AGS certified gem laboratory on site.  We are working on a listing of all the available brick and mortar jewelers, but for now, you can contact them directly at 800-368-5376, or visit them at:

The Jewelry Forest
9100 N Central Expressway
Suite 185
Dallas, Texas 75231  USA 

Wednesday, August 28th:  Cartier reproduction ring update:  We're casting the final model of this ring today, and have also added a new page to get ready for its launch.  Some new info on this ring:

• Ring will use 10 x 1.5mm round natural diamonds, (VS/G), for a total carat weight of .15ct
• Diamonds will be '2 bead brightset' exactly as done in the original
• Ring shank width will be approximately 1.75mm (very dainty, just like the original, meant to emphasize the center stone)
• We will be making a matching wedding band for it 
• We expect to have some additional photos of the new heads and shank this Friday, once the first master model is ready.

Our new Cartier Reproduction ring page is located here, and has additional details - we'll continue to update this page as we get closer to completing the first rings!

Tuesday, August 27th:  Takara & Artemis ring:  We've completed a ring using a very similar head to the one we are currently casting for the Cartier reproduction, and wanted to give you a bit of a preview.  Below are some photos of the Asscher Takara with a slightly thicker head than will be used for the Cartier reproduction - more photos are at our Artemis ring page.

Left: Asscher Takara in our platinum Artemis ring.  Right:  Close-up of the low set head, very similar (but this one is thicker) to the one being cast for the Cartier reproduction ring.

Thursday, August 22nd:  Four Takaras back from EGL!:  We've received four Takaras back with their grading reports today from EGL.  One of these has already been sold, but we are taking photos of all of them to add them to the site and will be scanning in their grading reports as well.

4 Yellowish Orange Takara, VVS1 Asscher, 1.18ct.

Of interest, the VVS1 Takara had no marking on the diamond plot - the comments noted that it would have been an IF (internally flawless) diamond except for some grain lines (basically growth marks) on the outside of the stone.  Here is an additional photo of that particular Takara:

*Now you can not only wear diamonds....eventually you can become one?:  Taking a different twist on man-made diamonds, a company in Chicago (www.LifeGem.com) has announced a process whereby cremated human remains can then be turned into a synthetic diamond.  Not sure whether this will appeal to customers or not, but interesting reading nonetheless:

From dust to dust ... to a diamond (msnbc.com)

Updated legislation on preventing 'blood' or 'conflict' diamonds:  Some good news on the current legislation that is taking shape in the EU (European Union) to further stamp out the trade of conflict diamonds.  Relevant reading for anyone involved in the purchase of larger natural diamonds:

War on 'blood' diamonds ramped up (from msnbc.com)

Tuesday, August 20th:  First Solstice Solitaire ring added!:  We've received a lot of requests to add the Stuller Solstice Solitaire rings to our available ring settings, and are happy to announce the first of several Solstice rings has now been added.

5 The Tapered Solstice Solitaire with a 1ct. Asha�
center stone

We'll be taking additional photos, including adding a 360 degree view for this
ring over the next few days.  You can view more photos and see our online
shopping at the new Tapered Solstice Solitaire page here!

*Additional rings in progress:  The Cartier Asscher reproduction has moved
into the casting stages, and we hope to have the first casts completed by
this coming Monday.  At that point, we'll determine the total quantity of
natural side diamonds that will be needed.  Like you, we are also waiting to
complete some additional Asha� Asschers so that we actually have a stone
to mount and complete the first Cartier reproduction for photos and online
shopping.  We'll have additional updates on this ring next week.

*Trellis wedding set:  One of our most popular rings we've offered, the
Trellis is being updated with a matching wedding band to form a complete
wedding set.  The waxes should be complete by this Friday, and casting/
molding will take place next week.

*Artemis wedding set:  Another popular ring, Darryl will be carving a
matching wedding band this Friday and Monday.  We'll hope to have the
complete wedding set available for sale within the next two weeks. 

Thursday, August 15th:  Takara Flanders photos updated!:  We're constantly working to try and capture the look of the Takara cultured diamonds in film the way they actually look in reality.  Thus, we've updated the Takara Flanders page with some additional photos that are closer to how they look in reality - these are photos of a .93ct Flanders Vivid Orangy Yellow - note that vivid orangy yellow is also the same color as the famous Tiffany's yellow diamond.  Our Takara Flanders page is here!

Tuesday, August 13th:  Takara Yellow Princess cuts now available!:  We've reorganized our Takara yellow cultured diamonds section to keep up with the additional cuts we are offering, and are pleased to announce the addition of two new princess cut Takaras - one is 1.49ct, our largest Takara yet, and a 1.02ct Takara.  They will go to EGL this week to recieve their fancy color diamond grading report.  Our new section breaks out the inventory for each type of cut onto its own page, the same way as we do our Asha� simulants.  You can view our revised loose Takara page here!

5 A 1.02 Fancy yellow-orange Takara princess

Monday, August 12th:  Welcome to our new web server!:  Our move to our new web-server is now complete, and we hope that you can see the substantial improvement in the speed of our website as a result.  The improved server performance will also allow us to add more items such as additional 360 degree ring views, which we'll be adding over the next few months.  

*First Takara to ever grade *VVS1* clarity:  We were very happy to get word on Friday that in our latest batch of Takara diamonds at EGL, one of them graded as VVS1 clarity (one notch below Internally Flawless) - this was on a 1.17ct Fancy Vivid Yellowish Orange Asscher cut Takara.  Within colored diamonds, of course, the 4C's are largely replaced by the 3C's of Color, Color and Color, so clarity is not that important the way it is in clear (white) diamonds, but nonetheless we were pleased to achieve this milestone.    

Saturday, August 10th:  Upgrade to new web server in-progress!:  Our new web server is now online and ready to roll.  The message boards have already been moved to the new server, and if you visit them, you'll immediately notice the significant speed/performance improvement.  Important note:  If you have had a favorites link to our message boards, you will need to update it - they have moved to this address:

http://66.216.127.156/discussion/ubbthreads.php 

or simply use our menu system (News & Interaction | Our Message Boards) and you'll be taken to the correct location as well.  

*Message boards upgraded to latest version:  Since we had to completely move the message boards, we used that as an opportunity to upgrade it to a newer version.  You'll now see additional functionality on the message boards including items such as an ability to rate different threads and other helpful features. 

*New web server will be fully available within 24 hours:  It takes about 24 hours for a DNS change to take effect, so by the end of the weekend, when you type in 'betterthandiamond.com' in your web-browser, the database that is used to find the actual IP address of our server will all have been updated and our move will be complete.  If you see 'Welcome to our new web server' on the top of the page above, your DNS provider has already been updated and you are in fact viewing our website on our new server.

Wednesday, August 6th:  Much more powerful web server coming!:  We've finalized the spec's for our new web server, and should have it up and running by late next week.  If you've been noticing that our site is getting slower, you are not alone - this will represent our 3rd server upgrade in the past year alone due to our continued growth.  We hope that the newest server will significantly enhance your browsing experience at our site, whether for our content or for interacting on our message boards.

*SuperbCert now cutting Princess Cut SuperbCerts:  We are also happy to note that SuperbCert is now cutting 'super-ideal' princess cut natural diamonds.  While there is no standard for what defines a 'super-ideal' princess cut the way there is for H&A rounds, the SuperbCert princess cut is done similar to our Asha� princess cut - cut for optimal beauty via a higher crown and smaller table.

As with H&A's, this is much less efficient than just cutting to commercial standards, but the result are easily viewable by the naked eye in terms of improved light performance, and corrobrated with their high marks on the BrillianceScope.

Tuesday, August 6th:  PM Update - Sold out of Asscher cut Asha�'s:  We have sold out of our 3ct. Asscher Asha�'s.  We are working on another larger run of Asschers right now, and have modified the online shopping to allow customers to pre-order the 3ct's at the intro pricing.  We hope to complete this run of Asschers (1.5ct, 2ct and 3cts) around the end of August.  As always, your card will not be charged until we have a stone ready to ship to you!

Tuesday, August 6th:  Duane, our primary stone setter, will be on vacation for the next week:  We're trying to get vacations out of the way now to get ready for the busy fall season, so we will have a one week delay in finishing most of our jewelry orders.  Loose stone orders will still ship within 48 hours in most cases.  After this next weeks delay, we should not have any other interruptions in jewelry setting until January 2003 when we'll probably have another round of vacations for getting through the Christmas rush :-)

*Researching even more powerful web server for our site:  Our website is continuing to receive even more traffic (over 1,000 visitors per day) and thus, we are in the middle of evaluating purchasing an even more powerful dedicated server to host our site.  Assuming we go forward this move, it will go online within another 3-4 weeks, again to prepare for the fall busy season.  That will help to speed up both the primary site, as well as our message boards and other interactive areas of the site.    

We will offer it in all metals for the shank, and platinum, white gold and 14k yellow for the head/prongs. At this time, we don't have final pricing - we will need to see how many diamonds end up being used, and how much metal is consumed in the final ring, as well as set one or two to evaluate completion costs on the ring.  We apologize for the delay, but we are going to ensure this ring, which has been so highly requested, is done absolutely right.

5 The original Cartier 1922 ring, which we will be reproducing for our Asha� Asscher cut.

*Oval Takaras!:  We also completed our first Oval Takara, and it came out simply stunning.  This may be the very best cut for the Takara yellows, as it really combines a beautiful level of brilliance with a high color saturation.  This is a 1.06ct oval, we'll be sending it to EGL for grading next week.  It will be added to our online shopping tomorrow - if the stone is not sold when it comes back from EGL, we will be setting it into a 3 stone ring with .5ct natural white side ovals, to create our first 3 stone oval ring.

Thursday, August 1st:  Photos of Takara rough:  We thought it would be interesting to show you a few photos of both some new blue cultured diamond rough, as well as one of the yellows to give you an idea of both color and what the Takara's look like fresh out of the growth chamber:

Left: A golden yellow Takara rough  Right:  A light blue and dark blue Takara rough crystal.

*Asscher Asha� news:  The Asscher Asha�'s seem to have struck a chord, and sales have been very fast.  Thus, we will go ahead and photo the waxes on Friday of the new prong head for the Asscher, as well as the Cartier reproduction ring so that customers can get a better idea of these items for possible use with their new Asschers.  Casting and completion will take about another week to week and a half, but wax photos should be posted on Friday!

Wednesday, July 31st:  Warning:  Fraudulent auctions on EBay!  Thanks to a large number of emails from some of our customers, we have found that there is someone fraudulently selling what they are calling "Asha� Diamonds" on EBay, utilizing our trademark ("Asha�") as well as copyrighted material from our website to create their auctions.  We do not know who this person(s) is/are, and have reported their auctions to the EBay counterfeit investigations.  In the US, the only authorized vendor currently for Asha� besides ourselves is www.goldcreations.com so this seller does not have Asha� to sell.  Thus, we don't know what they are selling, if anything.  Based on their payment requirements of wire transfer or cashiers check, all of their auctions closing at the same time, and their lack of auction history, we believe all of their auctions are fraudulent.  Unfortunately, all of their auctions have a fair number of bids and if EBay doesn't close the auctions, there will probably be some customers receiving nothing for their money.  Click to view a sample of these fraudulent auctions.  

From a recent MSNBC.com article on auction scams:  "The scams are easy to spot � such as a brand-new seller suddenly posting dozens of laptop computers for sale, insisting on wire transfer payment. ...  Clever scammers now regularly ship reams of paper, or even rocks, to buyers. That buys the scam artist a few more days before arousing suspicion, and often a FedEx tracking number is enough to convince a buyer to send the money."  Click here for the full article.

We will do our best to get these auctions shut down, thanks to those customers who emailed us about these fraudulent auctions!

Tuesday, July 30th:  Emerald cut Asha�'s are back in stock!:  We are happy to announce that we have completed another batch of Asha� emerald cuts, and they are now available for sale on our Asha� Emerald page.  Some customers have asked if the current Emerald pricing is introductory pricing - it is not.  This is simply another batch of Emerald Asha�'s that already went through their intro pricing this spring.  The Asscher cuts are currently in their intro pricing phase, as they are a new cut for us, and after the intro period expires, they will also revert to final pricing. Our Asha� Emerald page is here!

Monday, July 29th:  First Asha� Asscher cuts are completed!:  After a lot of feedback from our customers, we are pleased to announce the first of our Asha� Asschers are ready for sale.  We have only completed 10 3.00ct Asschers, but wanted to post the first photos, and make the 1.5ct and 2ct sizes available for those who wish to pre-order to ensure the introductory pricing of $150/ct.  Our Asha� Asscher page is here!  

*Asha� to Takara Upgrade plan!:  We have basically finalized our plan to offer Asha� customers an 80% trade-in credit of their Asha� purchase price for use in purchasing an equivalent or larger Takara Cultured Diamond.  Since we do intend to offer white and blue Takara's in the future, we encourage you to buy an Asha� in the size you intend to wear in Cultured Diamond, to allow an easy remounting of your future Takara.  We'll have additional details in the future, but the basic guideline is 80% of an Asha� stones purchase price will be re-credited towards a Takara if/when you opt to upgrade to a Takara Cultured Diamond.  Note:  We do hope to have white Takara's within the next year for sale, but cannot guarantee that it will absolutely be within one year! 

*Takara Blue Diamonds:  We'll hope to have some more rough for photos later this week.  One immediate point to address - there has been some incorrect "explanations" of how we make our blue diamonds on other message boards.  Takara blue diamonds are blue because boron is included in their growth, the same way nature colors blue diamonds (boron) ala the Hope Diamond.  Thus, Takara's are a very exact clone of mined blues - these are *not* irradiated blue diamonds.  We have not seen irradiated blue diamonds that looked as nice as natural induced blue diamonds (irradiated usually have a green tint), and if your jeweler puts a torch on your irradiated blue diamond, it has a good chance of turning permanently green.  We'll be adding additional info about our upcoming Takara blue's shortly to the website, but wanted to note that Takara's are "true blue" cultured diamonds, not to be confused with irradiated blues.

*Asha� Asschers will be cut for 1.5 and 2ct sizes!  We received a lot of feedback on our message boards about our upcoming Asha� Asscher cuts - we have already cut a few 3ct sizes, but there were a lot of requests for smaller sizes - thus, our cutters are now in the midst of cutting 1.5ct and 2ct specifically to answer those requests.  Once again, your feedback does have a direct impact on the products we produce for you!

Monday, July 22nd:  We have joined the Jewelers Vigilance Committee:  Billed as "The Industry Guardian of Ethics and Integrity" JVC is an industry organization that is comparable to the Better Business Bureau but specifically for companies involved in Jewelry.  Their self-description is below, and we'll have their logo on our site shortly after we have received clearance to add it.  Their website may be found here, as they have both a consumer and trade site:  http://www.jvclegal.org  

"The Jewelers Vigilance Committee was formed in 1917 to provide education and self-regulation to the jewelry industry. Members operate under the highest standards of business practice. They have pledged to comply with all laws that apply to the jewelry industry and make accurate representations about the products they sell. They have also pledged to resolve all consumer complaints promptly and fairly. Members commit to educating themselves and their staff to legal requirements and to communicating their pledge to their own business partners. The bottom line is that when you see the JVC logo, you can rely on our members' promise to uphold the ethics and integrity of the jewelry industry through their own business practices."

*What is the correct/best name for diamonds grown above ground?  With lab diamonds now starting to be reality, there is currently a lot of debate over what is the correct name to call these diamonds?  Synthetic Diamonds has been the default name, but the implied meaning of synthetic is usually 'fake' in many peoples minds, which is not correct since these are pure diamond, just grown above ground.  Thus, we've added our newest poll to get your feedback which we will pass along to EGL and GIA as we work with them on our Takara diamonds.  Our user poll is here!  

*Postponing Video Tutorials for the website:  Based on your poll results, video tutorials received only a mixed reception, and thus our newest tutorial showing how our lab diamonds are grown, will be done in photo/text format.  Thank you very much for your feedback!

Friday, July 19th, PM update:  New photos for our radiant Asha�:  We are starting to add more Asha� photos, this one was for a customer who had asked if the Asha� radiant performed as well in the sun as the princess Asha�, hopefully the photo below will answer. 

*Duane, our stone-setter, will be off on vacation from August 7 - 14th:  Thus, no stones will be set for that week, so if you have any birthdays or special events that week, please order early so he can complete it before vacation!

*Takara Oval and Princess cuts coming!  Our diamond cutters informed us that one of this weeks Takara crystals will make a 1.0ct Oval, and two will make excellent Princess cuts - so we will have those available towards the end of next week.  We are especially excited about the Oval, as this has been a very requested shape for use in three stone rings!

Wednesday, July 24th:  Enhanced Menu System!:  We've finally redone our menu system, though a lot of the changes are structural and thus not visible, but hopefully it will still improve your navigation experience with our site.  We will have several refinements of it over the next few days, but the most noticeable change is simply that the 'blue slider' has been vastly speeded up as per customer feedback.  Also of note, based on the results so far from our user poll, we've re-titled our Takara section as "Takara Cultured Diamonds".  You may like to know that the results of this poll will be forwarded to the GIA for a meeting on this topic (what to call lab-grown diamonds) and so your votes do allow you to have a direct impact on the emerging world of man-made diamonds.

*Takara "How Grown" tutorial should be ready later this week:  We've had to pull one photo as it showed too much proprietary info, but with a few more changes, we hope to have this available later this week.  Note that the menu link for this page is purposely not working until it is ready to post.

Friday, July 19th:  News page now the default page for entering the website:  We've changed the site a bit to put the news page up front and center as our welcome page - thus hopefully avoiding the need to go to the site and then click to the 'news' page, which along with our ring index page, is the most heavily trafficked page on the site.  If this change is an improvement or a degradation, please let us know via our message boards which are located here! 

*Scrapping current plans regarding Advance HPHT Clarity Enhanced diamonds:  Our experience with the company doing these diamonds has been less than remarkable, and as a result, we are scrapping plans for importing/cutting these diamonds as we had initially hoped.  If they are able to allow us to cut the rough ourselves we may bring it back in the future but for now, we will be pulling them from our site.

Thursday, July 18th:  Premiere ring for use in the upcoming movie "Beyond Recognition" completed:  We've finished the premiere ring that will be used in the shooting of the movie "Beyond Recognition" and wanted to post a few photos of it.  It uses a 1.20ct center Vivid Orangy-Yellow Flanders Takara, and once again, photos don't do it justice.  We'll have some video clips of the ring from the movie available on the website in the future.

6 Our Aldora Premiere ring with a
Takara Flanders center

*Nice feedback on Asha�:  We received a very nice email from a customer and they were kind enough to allow us to reprint:  

"I received the ring and was astonished! The stone is really beautiful and looks magnificent in the setting. It's so difficult to imagine the clarity, brillance and cut of the Asha� simulant from pictures on internet. I couldn't be more pleased." 

Thursday, July 18th:  Music on opening page turned off by default! We're catching up on website updates, and have changed the default for the music (Fur Elise) to not play by default.  You can turn it on at the top of the page if you enjoy it - we received a number of requests to not have it on by default, and have updated the site accordingly.

*Additional info regarding patent pending status for Asha�:  Some people had asked about our patent that is currently pending on the Asha� and its hybrid gem structure using Amorphous Diamond.  The patent title is "Hybrid Gem System", and we have not received anything back other than confirmation from the USPTO that they have received and are reviewing our application.  For related patents, our attorney's noted the following if that is of help:

"Examples of patented devices which may be related to the present invention include U.S. Patent 6,277,480 to Veerasamy et al.; U.S. Patent 5,795,648 to Goel et al.; U.S. Patent 6,312,808 to Veerasamy et al.; U.S. Patent 5,635,245 to Kimock et al.; U.S. Patent 6,338,901 to Veerasamy; U.S. Patent 6,335,086 to Veerasamy; U.S. Patent 5,190,807 to Kimock et al.; and U.S. Patent 5,879,775 to Walter et al."

Wednesday, July 17th:  Discover Card and American Express added as payment options on our checkout page! We're finally catching up on website updates, and this one was overdue - you can now select Discover or Amex on our shopping cart checkout page instead of having to call it in manually.  

*Most popular cut:  Flanders!   Reviewing our sales trends, it was interesting to find that the Flanders cut has eclipsed all other cuts in terms of loose stone sales, exceeding even our princess cut (which was the top seller last year).  

*New head for Asscher cut coming:  Darryl will be carving our newest head designed expressly for the Asscher cut next week.  It will be a copy of the head used by Cartier in the early 1920's for the Asscher cut, an example of which is shown on the right:

4 The dual prong head style that we will be creating for our Asschers (Asha� and Takara)

3 One of our more exotic Takara's: 
This is the 1.13ct Vivid radiant (orange-yellow) that was appraised at $63,200 if it were a mined diamond!  
Of course, its a man-made one, but still appraised as a synthetic at over $11,000. 

*Upcoming photo tutorial with one of our diamond cutters:  We've had some customers request a photo tutorial of how our diamond cutters cut the Takara's, and are planning on starting that process this week.  Hopefully we'll have a finished tutorial towards the end of next week!

*Clarity Improved Diamonds:  We've had very little luck with the company that does this HPHT work, and frankly are on the verge of dropping this relationship all together, but they did complete one princess cut diamond for us.  We are continuing to request that we are allowed to cut their rough, because their cutters have not been able to put together a successful Flanders or H&A round so far (though it does show you that these more exotic cuts require extremely good cutters!).  We received a copy of the EGL certificate, but have not seen the diamond in person.  It is an E color, 1.50ct princess cut, SI1, very good make, priced at $4275.  The copy of the EGL cert was poorly scanned, so we'll post when we receive a more legible copy.  If you are interested in this particular diamond, please let us know - we'll have it imported and evaluate here in person before we ask for any payment.

Sunday, July 14th:  360 degree spinning views of our rings! We're happy to post the first of our new library of interactive, 360 degree views of our rings.  This allows you to simply watch the ring spin, or to take control and manually spin the ring by dragging your mouse over the photo to force it so spin one direction or another.  Also supported is a zoom in / zoom out capability.  We are still refining the process of capturing the photos for this process, but we think it will be another step in bridging the gap between seeing the ring on the website vs. seeing it in person.