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This is Part 4; the final installment of my Hong Kong travels and GIA’s on-campus diamond grading course.

As the saying goes “All work and no play makes Paul a dull boy”. A trip to Hong Kong isn’t complete without visiting the attractions it had to offer. Here are the highlights of the places I had been during my stay.

Getting around the city center in electric trams is easy and convenient.

Without fail, almost every tourist to Hong Kong will undertake a day trip to Lantau Island to explore some of the famous landmarks there. Interestingly, the world’s longest cable car ride is also located there at Lantau Island, Ngong Ping. From the base station, the length of the cable car ride is an astounding 5km ride towards the peak of the mountain.  (more…)

Leopards and diamonds? What has a big predatory cat got to do with diamonds? Nope, we are not talking about Cartier and their recent marketing campaigns. While doing a search on the behalf of one of our readers, I came across something really interesting at James Allen today.

Click this link to take a look at what I found:

https://www.jamesallen.com/loose-diamonds/princess-cut/2.51-carat-f-color-i1-clarity-sku-207077

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It’s been a while since the blog was updated. As you can see, much has happened at Beyond4Cs.com since the last post in January. I was kept busy in revamping the website for a new face lift for the earlier part of this year.

And during the month of February, I flew over to Hong Kong to complete a lab grading module for GIA’s diamond graduate program.

While I was in Hong Kong, I took the liberty to explore major retail areas and experience jewelry shopping in this emerging Chinese market. Besides attending the GIA course, my other objective was to pay a visit to my older brother who had been based there for work.  (more…)

In today’s blog post, we answer a reader’s question on why the same diamond (with the same exact GIA certificate) can sometimes be found listed on the websites of different vendors. Is there something shady going on?

Read on to find out…

Question from reader: When doing a search for my engagement ring, I realized that the same diamond appears on multiple sites with slightly different pricings. I came to the conclusion after reviewing both listings that show the same exact GIA certification with diamond dimensions/proportions being identical.

By the way, here are the links to the above mentioned stones:

– 1.00 – Carat Round Diamond F Color VS2 Clarity – Blue Nile
– GIA Certified 1.00 Carat F-VS2 Excellent Cut Round Diamond – Enchanted Diamonds

I’m pretty sure both these websites are selling the same diamond and it looks fishy to me.

How can a diamond exists concurrently in 2 locations or be owned by the different vendors at the same time? Imagine if I were to purchased it, how can I be assured that I will receive the actual diamond being listed? Could you shed some light on this?  (more…)

Today’s Q&A post comes from an observant reader who had some questions about the different colors seen in the center of ASET images.

Question: I was looking at several AGS ideal cut diamonds at WhiteFlash and noticed peculiar things about the AGSL Computer Generated Light Performance Maps.

In some grading reports, the ASET diagrams showed a full green circle in the middle of the diamond and on some others, I noticed they were completely red.

Green or red center in a round brilliant cut diamond? Which is better?

In all of the diamonds I looked at, AGS has graded all of them as triple 0s and that’s the best rating possible. Based on the articles I read on your website, my takeaway is that red is preferable and we want to see more areas in red.

Here are my questions:

1. Since the amount of reds would affect light return, shouldn’t the diamond with the green center be graded with a lower cut grade?
2. Given that the diamonds are all triple ideal, shouldn’t they look identical? If so, why do they apparently have different light performances.

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