VVS Diamond Ring or Not VVS Diamond Ring?

[AndyW]

An interesting comment on Gems FB posts about presenter saying that just one VVS stone in a diamond band makes it a VVS ring (or something like that).

Seen this before. Happened to be watching once when they trailed a "VS" ring. I was gobsmacked that Gems had gone to this level so I stayed tuned. Turned out, when I looked at the web details (not that it was particularly made clear during the presentation) just one stone was VS. The rest were I grade and single cut (single cut guarantees crap diamond!).

Old hacks like us would know to check. Feel sorry for those that don't know to be suspicious.

To be fair, Rocks & Co do same in their Cavill diamonds BUT their VS diamond is the largest, centre diamond AND all the rest are graded SI. Bought an SI ring from them for a present and although it only had about ten 2mm stones, the design was great and the diamonds really popped. She loved it. Well worth the money.

 

[Bristol]

I have often looked at the details of on screen diamond rings on Gems especially any of the clusters. On these each the stones are listed by the separate size and shape which makes sense. The thing that I have often noticed is that, even when Gems is selling 'graded diamonds' by which they mean I3, often one of the lines is shown as I3 and the remainder of the x lines do not show a clarity. I have wondered if that is an indication that those diamonds are not even I3 rather than laziness by whoever enters the gem stone details. To be honest I am not a diamond shopper so as soon as Gems announce any of their diamond clusters I just mutter 'frozen spit' under my breath and proceed to be appalled by the presentation. The presenters just must have a concience removal at the start of their association with the channel. They can bang on all they like about the 'colour' grade but I think for most people if you looked in a jewellers window and saw I3 diamonds in a cluster you would never consider buying it. I still harbour a suspicion that the on screen sample is the best of the batch rather than a random piece but I have nothing other than a suspicion.
I note what you say about Rocks and I know that they will surround a VS centre stone with SI graded accent stones but I can accept that there is really no 'need' to have higher quality accent stones as no one would notice the difference and Rocks/Debbie Cavill have said many times that that is what they do. Of course if you want to treat yourself to D flawless then Kat Florence has an offering.
Basically I think that we just want honesty, full details and truthfulness which I would expect would reduce returns and make for happy customers. But I am sure that Steve knows his business model - and an expensive returns process (if the customer believes that Royal Mail Special Delivery is a 'must' for a safe return) helps. I always feel sorry for overseas customers for whom return postage probably makes items dreadfully expensive to return.