Malaysia Diamond Stores

When I talked to people around me, or whenever I go online and google about diamonds in Malaysia's Lowyat forum, I can see alot of people are just focusing on a slightly different 4Cs:

• Carat
• Clarity
• Colour
• Cost

What happened to Cut? I believe most people will only focus on Excellent cut, and that's it. No question asked about just how excellent is excellent. Maybe we all are curious about it, but we probably choose to ignore it and believe that getting Triple Excellent will be sufficient. That seem to be the effort most people will give when it comes to choosing diamonds - Learn the 4Cs, then go buy. If two diamonds share similar 4Cs, probably cost will come into play - Take whichever that is cheaper. Well, given the diamond buying situation here in Malaysia, I believe that's probably the best solution most of us can get locally.

Why do I say so? Because no matter how much I study online, no matter how I use the HCA tool, I won't be able to apply my newly acquired knowlege when choosing diamonds from brick and mortar stores! So, if I don't rely on the 4Cs, 3Ex, what else can I rely on? I may ask for the diamond certificate, but came across a situation where the salesperson do not allow me to take picture of the diamond's measurement. Why? Is it confidential? The answer is NO. You can easily obtained the diamond's measurement based on the certificate number.

GIA

 http://www.gia.edu/report-check-landing

AGS

https://www.agslab.com/verify_diamond_grading_report.php

So, the only logical explaination is: The more we know about that diamond, the less likely we are going to buy it. Well, we can memorize the proportions of the diamond if we have good memory, but are we able to memorize all the diamonds we come across? I don't know about you, but I definitely can't. However, if there is only 1-2 diamonds, probably this way can work, although troublesome. Anyway, ask the salesperson nicely if you can capture the certificate, if he/she allows it, then by all means, capture it and seek for second opinion. Beyond4Cs, NiceIce, and ProsumerDiamonds are there to provide free consultation. If they don't allow, probably is time to walk away, Malaysia has plenty of other non-mainstream jewellers that are able to provide better service.

Also, brick and mortar stores do not have Idealscope and ASET scope for you to view the light performance. So, how do we know if the diamond is any good? Don't think we can. You, however, may request for H&A scope to view the Hearts & Arrows. It is important to find out the Hearts to understand how true is the salesperson claim about the stores' H&A diamonds but here comes the problem. Usually, in brick and mortar stores, the diamond is already mounted on the ring, hence, we are unable to determine the hearts at all! I doubt that the salesperson will be willing to take out the diamond from the setting. I came across a shop that shows me a sample loose diamond, and claimed that it was perfect H&A, but when I looked at the Hearts using the H&A scope, I found that the H&A pattern failed to meet the standard.

Brick and mortar stores are here to stay, as Malaysians prefer to buy expensive items from a physical store instead of online store. But I can say that other than giving the purchasers a fake sense of security. there is no other purpose. In fact, the purchasers will be at a a much higher risk because he or she will most likely purchase a significantly overpriced diamond, in comparison to online stores. In worse case scneario, the diamond purchased may be of bad quality and does not worth the price!

If you are ready to venture out and purchase online, feel free to refer to my other posts as reference:

• Diamond Buying for Dummies
• Diamond Buying for Dummies 2
• Brian Gavin Diamonds