The Good Old Gold website feels very much like the bricks and mortar store that it is. The site aims to be very educational, and I personally learned a lot from the Good Old Gold website and from the youtube videos that Jonathan a.k.a. ‘Rhino’ produces. However, I must have been unsatisfied with how wealth of information is presented, and the fact that the site is stated as “The Ultimate Diamond Information Site”, when it really is a vendor’s website with the ultimate goal of selling diamonds. This is what happens when vendors also want to educate consumers and it is impossible to avoid the issue of bias, no matter how educational the site may be. This is precisely why I thought there was a need for Prosumer Diamonds.
Quality of the Good Old Gold Superior Hearts & Arrows Diamond
Good Old Gold explains in their education pages on optical symmetry that their Superior designation is in response to the lack of optical symmetry grading by the major labs. It is obvious that Good Old Gold believes that the major labs fail to grade cut effectively because they advocate that optical symmetry ought to be very important in regards to cut grading.
It is important to note that Good Gold Gold will apply their Superior designation to diamonds with longer lower girdle lengths (>80%). These diamonds will not be traditional H&A diamonds as featured by other super-ideal diamond vendors. These kinds of diamonds will have a ‘open-heart’ H&A image and will display a clef in between the hearts. Purists will say that these are not true H&A, but in terms of beauty, Good Old Gold is correct to say that in ideal cut diamonds, a longer lower girdle length will not negatively impact the diamond and simply is a different ‘flavour’ of diamond.
Good Old Gold also has a premium designation that they say are for diamonds that just miss the mark of being superior. They give several examples of the kind of defects that will make a diamond lose its superior designation:
• The arrow shafts are not aligned at the base such that the star pattern around the table reflection is distorted.
• One or more smaller hearts, which affect the hotspots at the base of the arrow shafts such that they are not uniform.
Good Old Gold makes two claims about the near-H&A. The first is that a person will not be able to tell the difference between a superior and a premium. Second is that often, the near-H&A carry the same price premium has perfect H&A.
I cannot agree entirely with either of these statements because the first statement is only true if a person casually examines the diamonds. What I think they mean is that to an average consumer and with the naked eye that the two cannot be distinguished, and I think then this statement would be true for most excellent graded diamonds. The second statement is quite simply false. If both seller and buyer know the value of the product, then there will definitely be a significant price difference that should be comparable to the difference between a VVS1 and IF clarity diamond.
Lets have a look at the Good Old Gold Superior H&A to see how they hold up to their description. When I use their diamond search engine, the first thing I notice is that Good Old Gold does not carry that many diamonds so I cannot just pick out six random diamonds that are very similar like I have done so in my past reviews. Nevertheless, I have randomly selected six superior diamonds ranging from D to H and VVS1 to SI2 in clarity for the review.
Good Old Gold Diamond Spreadsheet
When I look at the diamonds in the above table, I immediately see that in general the table sizes are in between 55% to 57%. I also note that the depth percentages are all less than 62%. I am disappointed that there is no immediate information regarding the girdle, but quickly checking the lab reports of some of these diamonds reveal that most of them have thin to medium girdle thickness.
The crown angles are mostly around 34.5 and 35 degrees and the pavilion angle combinations are mostly 40.8 degrees with two exceptions. I will have a look at those more closely in a bit. So far, it seems that most of these proportions fall within my recommended specifications. The only thing I will say is that the superior H&A line does not have any particular look to them and they seem to be all selected by Good Old Gold for their light performance and overall visual appearance. To confirm this let me have a closer look at the two diamonds with the steeper pavilion angles.
First the 1.15ct DVS1:
actual-1
At first glance, the actual image of the diamond seems to show the brightness of the diamond under the table as strong and balanced. It is expected that the top half of the diamond appears brighter than the bottom half. When I first saw this image, I thought it was very weird that the crown is relatively darker than the rest of the diamond. I think this may be a photography issue because I have since gone on to check every one of Good Old Gold’s Superior H&A’s actual images and it does seem that the relative darkness of some of the facets seem to be flipped.
I will illustrate what I mean by the following example of a 1.53ct KVS1 with lab#9977210.
actual-153kvs1Video of 153KVS1
The image of the left is the actual diamond picture on the Good Old Gold website, the image of the left is taken off of a recent video of the same diamond. Have a look at the bright crown in the video and a dark table reflection. This is opposite of the dark crown and the bright table reflection. Also notice the much more dark bottom half of the diamond in the video compared to the image on the website.
Lets get back to the DVS1. Below is the hearts image.
hearts-1
As you can see, the hearts all have a clef in between them indicating a >80% lower girdle length. Apart from this, I can only seem very minor misalignment of the hearts and the V’s are slightly distorted indicating that there is minor yaw in the diamond. This would not be a diamond that I would rate in the top 10% of super-ideal H&A diamonds. The good things going on are that all the hearts are the same size so I would expect the hotspots to be fairly uniform and also that the opposing V’s are actually quite symmetrical, an important link between optical symmetry and light performance. Also, the separation between the hearts and the V’s are uniform indicating tight variances in the lower girdles.
Good Old Gold does not provide an idealscope image, but instead uses their technology known as a diamxray. A diamxray works in the same way as an idealscope but is designed to work with a much stronger backlighting. Good Old Gold says that it is possible to be more critical with a diamxray than an idealscope image. I personally would prefer an idealscope because I am more used to analysing them.
diamxray-1
Looking at the hotspots, they are fairly uniform as expected at the base of the arrow shafts. As with all arrow views, slight tilt will affect photography so any comments as to optical symmetry should only be generalised. My biggest problem with diamxray is that it can be confusing for consumers. The reds in this image seem to be very uniform. But compare it with the diamxray image of below of another diamond.
diamxray-2
The difference in photography and in backlighting makes me question how to really analyse these images. Nevertheless, I do not see any leakage under the table in the DVS1 that many people fear with diamonds that have a pavilion angle at or above 41 degrees.
Now lets have a look at the other potentially problematic diamond, the 1.32ct HSI2. First the actual image:
actual-3
Just looking at this image, the arrows seem to not be reflecting as much head shadow/body obstruction as you normally expect. However, the diamond appears to be overall brighter than DVS1. From my reservations about the photography, I would be a bit cautious of this stone.
hearts-3
The hearts image looks fine with the only obvious defect at the nine o’clock heart where the two sides of the heart doesn’t line up.
diamxray-3
The diamxray of this diamond confuses me quite a bit. The image seems to confirm that the head shadow/body obstruction is weak in the arrows. But the whole image seems to display this darker color, from the upper girdles, to the lower girdles, and even in the table reflection. What is clear is that there does appear to be lighter pinks under the table than the previous images I have reviewed and this is directly related to a steeper pavilion angle. They are not yet to the point of leaking though, which can be seen by comparing to the white spots of leakage in the upper girdles that are expected.
Again, there is a possibility that the dark areas are an issue with photography. This fact does not sit well in the back of my mind. Perhaps I will run these questions by Rhino and see if he will shed some light and then I will come back and make whatever changes are necessary to this review. But what is certain is that I have looked at 3 diamxray images and all 3 are so different that it makes me feel like these images are not particularly helpful to consumers.
Quality of the Good Old Gold Premium Hearts & Arrows Diamond
Earlier in this review I have already mentioned two of the defects that can make a diamond miss the mark on a superior designation. I will repeat them here for convenience.
• The arrow shafts are not aligned at the base such that the star pattern around the table reflection is distorted.
• One or more smaller hearts, which affect the hotspots at the base of the arrow shafts such that they are not uniform.
For simplicity, I will randomly look at several arrows images of Good Old Gold’s Premium Ideal Cut Round.
arrows-gvs2 arrows-fvs2
Arrows-fsi1 smaller heart
There are an infinite number of variations that Good Old Gold seems to consider to be premium. From what I can tell, a main consideration is whether the diamond displays an arrows pattern. The four images above show various defects that you can find within the premium ideal cut designation. Most of the defects can be attributed to misalignment and twisting of the diamond due to yaw. The image on the bottom right shows what a diamond with one smaller heart would look like.
smaller heart image
You can see the smaller heart at the eight o’clock position. The heart is further away from the V because the lower girdle length at that point is longer than the others. The point is that if you want a premium cut diamond, there is a very wide range of diamonds and some will be closer to the Superior designation than others.
Price
First off, Good Old Gold does not offer a pricescope discount. Instead they just have a bank wire discount. There are some vendors out there that offer both pricescope and bank wire discounts. Many of the diamonds on Good Old Gold’s site do not have a price listed. The reason given by Rhino is that the stone may be on consignment or they may otherwise have an agreement with a supplier that does not want them to publicly list the price. A 1.02ct HVS2 Superior H&A that had a price was listed at $8,218. A comparable 1.02ct HVS2 True Heart from James Allen on the other hand is $7,510 (with further discounts available). The 10% extra that you are paying is for the many value added services that Good Old Gold provide starting with information, lots and lots of information.
Information Provided
When you purchase a Superior H&A diamond from Good Old Gold, you get an actual image, the diamxray, an ASET, hearts and arrows images, brilliantscope/gemex results, Isee2 results, and a photomicrograph showing the location of the inclusion.
Remember that information is only as good as the ability to interpret it. The brilliantscope counts the frequency of flashes with a stationary diamond and a moving light source. However, the brilliantscope does not take into account optical symmetry, contrast, or painting of the upper girdles. Therefore, there is a need for Isee2 technology, which assesses the contrast, brightness, and optical symmetry of the diamond and gives it a score out of 10. Apparently a perfect score is impossible to achieve. Neither of these technologies adequately measures the fire of a diamond.
On top of the brilliantscope and the Isee2, you also get a Helium report, which is the most comprehensive diamond report available. Just have a look yourself.
Helium
Also, because Good Old Gold is a brick and mortar store and Rhino is such a nice guy and really has passion in what he does, you are sure to get great customer service and have all this info explained to you when you go there in person.
Ease of Searching a Diamond
Good Old Gold has one of the best diamond search engines on the internet allowing you to literally search for any proportion combination. The only problem is that their limited inventory negates the usefulness of the search engine. Because they don’t have a lot of diamonds, it is easy to find the diamond they have or don’t have for your specifications. Overall, the site may seem confusing for first-time users because it is not designed like the typical Blue Nile type website. Another real plus for Good Old Gold is that they carry a very wide range of superior fancy cuts.
One thing I really like about the Good Old Gold diamond search filter is the ability to expand the details of all their diamonds in the list. It allows you to quickly see all the important information about the diamond immediately, which is very nice. Again, the fact that a lot of their diamonds do not have a listed price can be annoying for an online consumer.
Value Adding Company Policies
Good Old Gold has a 30-day return policy (less shipping), average for the industry. Where the Good Old Gold policies shine is that they have a lifetime trade-up policy where you can get a 100% credit (less shipping) toward another diamond that is equal or greater in value. They also have a buy-back policy where they will buy back your diamond at any time for 25% less than what you paid for it. This policy is one of the best I’ve seen in the industry. Finally, Good Old Gold can help your online buying experience by making a video for you. The only caveat, although understandable, is that there is a requirement for a $500 refundable deposit before they will make a video for you.
Conclusion
Congratulations for getting to the end of this extremely long review. I hope that I have covered most of the important points about Good Old Gold, their diamonds, and their value added services. The Good Old Gold Superior H&A diamonds are undoubtedly some of the most precision cut diamonds in the world. Every diamond in the Good Old Gold inventory is handpicked for their appearance, and each one will be uniquely suitable to a lucky consumer out there. Although Good Old Gold does not aim to be the cheapest vendor, their value add services are among the best in the industry.
I recommend purchasing a Superior H&A from Good Old Gold if you are looking for a super-ideal diamond with longer lower girdles for more pin fire flashes. I would also recommend them for those who are looking for the peace of mind of having as much information as is physically possible for a diamond.
The Premium ideal cut range encompasses a wide range of diamonds. As far as I can tell, these can be any diamond within the AGS0/GIAex cut grade that have aligned arrows with no major optical asymmetry. It is worthwhile to be more particular with Good Old Gold if you want to find a particularly nice Premium ideal cut diamond. If you are not going to be particular, there are cheaper alternatives out there for those on a tight budget working to maximise their bang for the buck and Good Old Gold may not be the place if you are looking to stretch your dollar. But if you value the experience of purchasing from a brick and mortar store, along with the quality of the customer service, then I can’t think of a better place than Good Old Gold.
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