Diamond daze

I am a very lucky girl.  Zak has given me some very nice jewelry over the last few years, due to his jewelry connected jobs.  I am very well aware that I wouldn't have some of the things I treasure were it not for his job at Good Ole Tom's in CT.  He was able to get some very good prices on everything, including my engagement ring and wedding band.  So I am a very lucky girl and I love everything he has given me and try my best to express my appreciation for all my sparkly things.

Zak bought my engagement ring about 6 months before he proposed, and without too much input from me.  I told him I wanted something simple, with a round cut diamond and figured he would be able to find something.  He found something that I don't know if I would've picked out myself if I saw it, but I immediately fell in love with it.  It's an antique setting and ring and was just perfect.  I remember on my trip to Europe, every girl thought my ring was so unique and beautiful, and I was proud to tell them that Zak picked it out all by himself!

 the night we got engaged

Zak says that he knew it was a pretty decent diamond in the ring, but we didn't find out until the last few weeks how really nice the diamond is.  It is a quarter carat, which is big enough for my skinny piano playing fingers.  And we had assumed it was an Old European cut, but after awhile under the gem-scope at Harry Ritchie's, Zak & his co-worker Mat determined it's most likely an older version of the modern brilliant cut*.  The modern brilliant cut was invented in the 1920s and gain popularity and perfection in the 1930s and 1940s.  So the boys figure my ring was probably made in the 1920s or 1930s.  Their reasoning is that the culet (the hole on the bottom of the diamond; today's diamonds have a small, tiny one) is larger, meaning it was hand cut.

After some more inspection, they determined my diamond is probably a VVSI, or Very Very Slightly Included.  [FL is Flawless, IF is Internally Flawless, and VVSI is the next step down--only those who are trained to look for inclusions can find them under a heavy microscope.]  I was not expecting that!  Mat said their store doesn't carry VVSI diamonds because they are pretty expensive.  And to add to the surprise, the color of the diamond is in the realm of F - H (D is Colorless, J is the lowest of the Near Colorless).

They appraised my ring for a large amount of money that I totally was not expecting, definitely not anywhere near to the price Zak paid for it!  So it turns out that I have a very beautiful, near perfect diamond sitting happily on my ring finger.  I always knew it was a nice diamond, but holy cow! 

And finally, a few weeks ago, the store had a 're-mount' day, where they had a lot of gems and stones that could be somewhat custom-made for customers.  Zak had the jeweler solder my engagement and wedding rings together, so now I have one happy ring!  In short: Zak has been very good to me in the jewelry department and I know it!  Thank you, honey! :)

 

soldered together

my pretty diamonds (the ones in the wedding band are also very nice)

the cool antique setting

*Update as of 7/1: We have come across some material stating that my diamond is most likely the actual European cut.  Zak's co-worker has a big diamond manager training book and he was reading about it yesterday.  The picture in the book looks almost exactly like what my diamond looked like under the scope!