Black by Brian Gavin

Today, I want to introduce you "Black by Brian Gavin". For those who are unfamiliar with Brian Gavin, he is actually one of the top-notch diamond cutters around. He is a fifth-generation diamond cutter and is renowned for his "quality benchmark and grading system for hearts and arrows diamonds", according to Wikipedia. He helped to start WhiteFlash, which is a well-known online jeweller in the USA and later founded his own company - Brian Gavin Diamonds.

Ok, back to the main topic after the short introduction. So,what is so special about Black by Brian Gavin? If you have been researching for diamonds on the internet, you will know that there is a pattern called Hearts and Arrows, which is a fascinating pattern that can be seen using a H&A scope if the diamond is ideally cut. These kind of diamonds are known as super-ideal diamonds, and there are less than 1% of all round brilliant diamonds in the world that can fall into this category. As for Brian Gavin Diamonds, henceforth known as BGD, already has their own signature series that fall into this category of diamonds, probably with even stricter cutting guidelines. With the introduction of Black by Brian Gavin, a new pinnacle has been reached and the current limits of what can be produced by the original BGD is now at a whole new level with this new collection. Although I am thrilled, but I have yet to have a chance to look at a BGD diamond. However, I own a WhiteFlash A-Cut-Above, a collection from WhiteFlash that is started by Brian Gavin himself and that piece I have is simply better than most I have seen in brick-and-mortar shops and online stores in Malaysia. Therefore, I have 100% confidence that work by Brian Gavin is simply stunning. Not to mention about all the different positive reviews that can be read all over the internet.

If you are a curious type of person, you may probably have this question: "What's the difference between a Signature Brian Gavin and a Black by Brian Gavin?" To be honest, I cannot answer you, however, you can always look for professional like Todd Gray from NiceIce.com to help you out. He provides diamond concierge service and he is affiliated with BGD. You may refer to my earlier blog post if you wish.

In Malaysia, how much does it cost to have a 0.5ct diamond? Audrey's Malaysia website tells me RM 6,000+ to a whopping RM 22,000+. To be clear, I am filtering with the following criterias:

Audrey's Diamond Search

And now, why am I using such criteria? This is because I would like to make the criteria the same as Black by Brian Gavin, which falls between D-G colour and FL-VS2 clarity. And why 0.5ct - 0.6ct range? Well, this is because 0.51 seems to be the smallest diamond for Black by Brian Gavin, haha, but don't get me wrong, 0.5 does not look small at all on a ladies' finger in my opinion. Also, I would also like to keep the amount of money spent to be lesser by limiting the range up until approximately 0.6ct. This is simply because I believe that this range already stretched the pockets of an average young working adult in Malaysia that is hunting for a diamond.

So, let's see if Black by Brian Gavin will burn pockets for people in Malaysia or not. In this experiment, I simply use a similar specs diamond for comparison, a 0.51 F VVS2 GIA graded diamond vs 0.51 F VVS2 Black by Brian Gavin graded by AGS (the first item in the screenshot for Black by Brian Gavin below).

0.51 F VVS2 costs RM 9,418.22

Black by Brian Gavin costs RM 10,139.79 (approximate from BGD website)

Please bear in mind that in Malaysia, all diamonds purchased are subject to GST of 6%. Therefore, this makes the revised approximate value to be RM 10,748,18 (I skipped the GST for insurance and freight to keep things simple). This makes the difference between the diamond offered by the two vendors to be RM 1,329.96. So is this still worth to consider Black by Brian Gavin? Well, my answer is definitely yes. Why? My answer is simply because the cut score calculator provided by Enchanted Diamonds only score the GIA graded diamond with a 96.9 cut score out of 100. I would always want a diamond to be scoring a 100 cut score but this does not guarantee the diamond to be a great performer. We will still need to verify the performance of the diamond with the necessary diamond images, such as ASET image and Hearts and Arrows image, which are hard to get from a lot of diamond vendors out there. Only certain vendors will provide, and that includes BGD. Here take a look at the images for the 0.51 F VVS2 by BGD:

ASET image for 0.51 F VVS2 Black by Brian Gavin

Ideal Scope image for 0.51 F VVS2 Black by Brian Gavin

Hearts & Arrows images for 0.51 F VVS2 Black By Brian Gavin

So, as you can see, we have all the necessary images to identify a performing diamond.This is really important to make sure our hard earned money is well-spent. On a side note, the GIA diamond above that scored a 96.9 cut score may be acceptable too, but the vendor has to back this up with the complete images to provide additional data. Anyway, I have calculated the HCA score, and I will 100%  reject this diamond due to such low score.

HCA score for 0.51 F VVS2 diamond graded by GIA

Also, as a layman, I will stick to a diamond with 100 cut score, to play safe.

Just in case you are curious, here is the HCA score for 0.51 F VVS2 Black by Brian Gavin.

HCA score for 0.51 F VVS2 Black by Brian Gavin

In Malaysia, Audrey's is already selling diamonds at a cheaper price than brick-and-mortar stores (but probably not the cheapest online store in Malaysia) and a 96.9 cut score with HCA score at 4.0 still costs me RM 9,418,22. So, as far as a Malaysia is concerned, Black by Brian Gavin is definitely worth it.

Also, by no means I am saying diamonds sold by Audrey's are bad, just that out of the many diamonds they offer,  the one I selected does not meet my expectation.