hisGRIMness
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JannPaul Review
Hi guys, so here is my review of JannPaul.
My diamond hunt started back in October 2015, and I was served by Jerome.
I contemplated on whether to bring my girlfriend down, and decided to do so to save on all the guess work.
I had a special request for a 0.86 as it was my gf’s birth year, and they had it!
Brought her down, to see all the different kinds of stones, but she preferred the simplicity of the round brilliant. She wanted size as a priority, after a decent clarity and colour was chosen, so she opted not to go for the special cuts like the solasfera.
One thing that stood out for me was that under store lightings, all the diamonds looked the same. Even the solasfera did not really stand out. Jerome took out a common triple excellent and the 0.86 Super Ideal I was initially looking at, and brought them out of the store. Me and my gf still could not really see a difference. However, once under the scope, the differences became really obvious. In their defence, I think Jerome took a pretty decent common triple ex to compare the Super Ideal against, because the common diamond was almost full red, with minor leakages and lack of symmetry.
Another thing that stood out was the colour variations for G colour, Jerome picked out a G Solasfera and it was really yellow. However, the differences from D to F were really slight and my girlfriend decided that F was the minimum she could go to.
So we went home without committing to anything, and we had a discussion on what she wanted, and it turns out she was really after a carat! She even offered to top up the difference! Girls…
Anyway, how can a lady share the purchase of a proposal ring? Didn’t feel right to me. So I had to mentally prepare myself to burn my wallet!
I made a second appointment with Jerome 2 weeks later to select a diamond, this time I went with my younger brother. He had already given me quotes for 1.01 carat diamonds, and I was somewhat prepared to spend that amount if necessary. My brother tagged along without an appointment, and Jerome kindly arranged another sales assistant - Joy, to accommodate my brother and teach him the ways of the stone.
As I was comparing the 2 x 1.01 carat diamonds, a G VS2 and a F VS1. (FYI cheapest 1 carat loose diamond in JannPaul will be slightly over 14k, back in October 2015), out of curiousity, I asked Jerome about the prices of 1.10 (my girlfriend’s birthday) and whether he had such stones available. To my surprise, he did have a few stones to choose from with that exact carat weight! And the price of a 1.10 was about the same as a colour or clarity upgrade on a 1.01 diamond, basically 10%. So, I got to compare a G and F 1.10 carat diamonds under the scope.
The first thing that stood out for me was that the F is slightly more symmetrical under the scopes vs the G, although both were super ideals. Grateful for that as my girlfriend did not want a G colour. I was fairly comfortable with quality of the F after checks on the diamond under all scopes like the idealscope, aset, and hearts and arrows. I decided on the 1.10 F VS1! Omg!
Here are the videos of what it is like to view the scopes:
Meanwhile, my brother, who was simply tagging along and did not really intend to make a diamond purchase was completely poisoned by Joy and had selected a solasfera! Jerome went to check with his management and gave the both of us a slight discount because we sort of bought 2 diamond rings together.
We next placed both diamonds that we had chosen under the gemex machine, and I could see the differences of the solasfera, it was definitely reflecting a lot more light, with significantly brighter, but smaller sparkles.
After deciding on the diamond, and having done prior research on the ring, I told Jerome about what I wanted for the ring design - I wanted a 6 prong design (because eight hearts and arrows + 6 prongs = 86 birthyear = full birthday diamond!) that was based on the cathedral design. Jerome mentioned that this was the first time he knew someone who wanted the 6 prongs oriented in the east west direction vs north south, but I wanted to protect the diamond because damage to a diamond is “usually” caused along the east and west due to the swinging of the arms and the natural movement of the hand. Jerome took down the base requirements and told me a 3D render will be provided in around 2 weeks, and the scopes for the diamond will be provided within a week.
I received the scopes after a few days, and I recall my excitement at how symmetrical the diamond is! I spent hours looking at the scopes! Here they are:
The design of the ring took a lot longer than expected, and I decided to head down to discuss about the design as I felt it was easier to talk about the design in person, rather than through emails.
The first render was not really what I expected of a cathedral ring design, but I felt it was nice anyway. I requested for another render of a proper cathedral design, and they did it on the spot for me. Eventually I chose the first render due to it’s simplicity, also, they were taking far too long to fine tune a 3rd render!
When I collected the diamond ring, it was on schedule, and slightly over a month after I confirmed the ring design. Paid the rest of the price with an installment, and checked that the GIA inscription was correct. Jerome entertained me further by letting me satisfy my curiosity of diamond colours, and showed me diamonds from D to G along with my diamond set in the ring.
I can’t really tell anything once a diamond is set frankly, as it is obscured by the shadows of the prongs. Also, can you tell the diamond colours apart?
Pros:
Excellent service in the shop.
Diamond education is second to none! I went to look around at other chain shops and no one came close.
Jerome took the initiative and gave me some additional services.
Cons:
After making my purchase, the quick responses from JannPaul slowed down, and sometimes it feels like they missed my emails completely, I will give them the benefit of doubt as it might be the crazy December period and everyone is buying diamonds from them. You might have to send them chasers when you deal with JannPaul.
Ring renders take a long time.
After I collected my ring, and the excitement has died down just a little, I realised when I was back at home that the diamond was not oriented in the correct way I requested. I still have not gotten back a reply from Jerome after shooting a quick sms. I felt it was a minor issue and I had to prepare for the proposal, and it had to wait. I can probably get it rotated during a repolish.
Platinum - there are a few alloys used by the industry, JannPaul only provided one choice which was the softest alloy, I believe. The harder the platinum alloy, the higher the cost usually. In the end, I opted for the white gold option.
---
Aftermath:
I certainly recommend JannPaul!
One side effect of making such a big purchase was that I became very sensitive with credit cards. I paid the deposit of my diamond with a lousy mastercard from citibank with normal points. And I decided that I wanted to get maximum value from the purchase - So I signed up with UOB and got the UOB One card. JannPaul has interest free installments on UOB and if you can get $2k each month for a quarter, you will get back $100 per month or 5%. Better than the 2% cash discount they previously offered (no longer due to complaints).
I began searching for offers and came upon a promotion by OCBC with aMEI’s concert. I quickly returned to JannPaul to pay a further deposit and managed to win a pair of Cat 1 tickets to a concert the day after my proposal. So another happy surprise for my gf!
Proposal tips for flowers: fareastorchid (120 roses with the white side flowers for $88.88) DIY.
If anyone went to the aMEI concert, I am the guy with the bouquet of lighted 110 roses! aMEI seeing my flowers and clapping really made it a concert to remember. My fiance was really afraid that aMEI will steal it. Haha!
The end!
Let me know if you have any queries!
Hi guys, so here is my review of JannPaul.
My diamond hunt started back in October 2015, and I was served by Jerome.
I contemplated on whether to bring my girlfriend down, and decided to do so to save on all the guess work.
I had a special request for a 0.86 as it was my gf’s birth year, and they had it!
Brought her down, to see all the different kinds of stones, but she preferred the simplicity of the round brilliant. She wanted size as a priority, after a decent clarity and colour was chosen, so she opted not to go for the special cuts like the solasfera.
One thing that stood out for me was that under store lightings, all the diamonds looked the same. Even the solasfera did not really stand out. Jerome took out a common triple excellent and the 0.86 Super Ideal I was initially looking at, and brought them out of the store. Me and my gf still could not really see a difference. However, once under the scope, the differences became really obvious. In their defence, I think Jerome took a pretty decent common triple ex to compare the Super Ideal against, because the common diamond was almost full red, with minor leakages and lack of symmetry.
Another thing that stood out was the colour variations for G colour, Jerome picked out a G Solasfera and it was really yellow. However, the differences from D to F were really slight and my girlfriend decided that F was the minimum she could go to.
So we went home without committing to anything, and we had a discussion on what she wanted, and it turns out she was really after a carat! She even offered to top up the difference! Girls…
Anyway, how can a lady share the purchase of a proposal ring? Didn’t feel right to me. So I had to mentally prepare myself to burn my wallet!
I made a second appointment with Jerome 2 weeks later to select a diamond, this time I went with my younger brother. He had already given me quotes for 1.01 carat diamonds, and I was somewhat prepared to spend that amount if necessary. My brother tagged along without an appointment, and Jerome kindly arranged another sales assistant - Joy, to accommodate my brother and teach him the ways of the stone.
As I was comparing the 2 x 1.01 carat diamonds, a G VS2 and a F VS1. (FYI cheapest 1 carat loose diamond in JannPaul will be slightly over 14k, back in October 2015), out of curiousity, I asked Jerome about the prices of 1.10 (my girlfriend’s birthday) and whether he had such stones available. To my surprise, he did have a few stones to choose from with that exact carat weight! And the price of a 1.10 was about the same as a colour or clarity upgrade on a 1.01 diamond, basically 10%. So, I got to compare a G and F 1.10 carat diamonds under the scope.
The first thing that stood out for me was that the F is slightly more symmetrical under the scopes vs the G, although both were super ideals. Grateful for that as my girlfriend did not want a G colour. I was fairly comfortable with quality of the F after checks on the diamond under all scopes like the idealscope, aset, and hearts and arrows. I decided on the 1.10 F VS1! Omg!
Here are the videos of what it is like to view the scopes:
Meanwhile, my brother, who was simply tagging along and did not really intend to make a diamond purchase was completely poisoned by Joy and had selected a solasfera! Jerome went to check with his management and gave the both of us a slight discount because we sort of bought 2 diamond rings together.
We next placed both diamonds that we had chosen under the gemex machine, and I could see the differences of the solasfera, it was definitely reflecting a lot more light, with significantly brighter, but smaller sparkles.
After deciding on the diamond, and having done prior research on the ring, I told Jerome about what I wanted for the ring design - I wanted a 6 prong design (because eight hearts and arrows + 6 prongs = 86 birthyear = full birthday diamond!) that was based on the cathedral design. Jerome mentioned that this was the first time he knew someone who wanted the 6 prongs oriented in the east west direction vs north south, but I wanted to protect the diamond because damage to a diamond is “usually” caused along the east and west due to the swinging of the arms and the natural movement of the hand. Jerome took down the base requirements and told me a 3D render will be provided in around 2 weeks, and the scopes for the diamond will be provided within a week.
I received the scopes after a few days, and I recall my excitement at how symmetrical the diamond is! I spent hours looking at the scopes! Here they are:
The design of the ring took a lot longer than expected, and I decided to head down to discuss about the design as I felt it was easier to talk about the design in person, rather than through emails.
The first render was not really what I expected of a cathedral ring design, but I felt it was nice anyway. I requested for another render of a proper cathedral design, and they did it on the spot for me. Eventually I chose the first render due to it’s simplicity, also, they were taking far too long to fine tune a 3rd render!
When I collected the diamond ring, it was on schedule, and slightly over a month after I confirmed the ring design. Paid the rest of the price with an installment, and checked that the GIA inscription was correct. Jerome entertained me further by letting me satisfy my curiosity of diamond colours, and showed me diamonds from D to G along with my diamond set in the ring.
I can’t really tell anything once a diamond is set frankly, as it is obscured by the shadows of the prongs. Also, can you tell the diamond colours apart?
Pros:
Excellent service in the shop.
Diamond education is second to none! I went to look around at other chain shops and no one came close.
Jerome took the initiative and gave me some additional services.
Cons:
After making my purchase, the quick responses from JannPaul slowed down, and sometimes it feels like they missed my emails completely, I will give them the benefit of doubt as it might be the crazy December period and everyone is buying diamonds from them. You might have to send them chasers when you deal with JannPaul.
Ring renders take a long time.
After I collected my ring, and the excitement has died down just a little, I realised when I was back at home that the diamond was not oriented in the correct way I requested. I still have not gotten back a reply from Jerome after shooting a quick sms. I felt it was a minor issue and I had to prepare for the proposal, and it had to wait. I can probably get it rotated during a repolish.
Platinum - there are a few alloys used by the industry, JannPaul only provided one choice which was the softest alloy, I believe. The harder the platinum alloy, the higher the cost usually. In the end, I opted for the white gold option.
---
Aftermath:
I certainly recommend JannPaul!
One side effect of making such a big purchase was that I became very sensitive with credit cards. I paid the deposit of my diamond with a lousy mastercard from citibank with normal points. And I decided that I wanted to get maximum value from the purchase - So I signed up with UOB and got the UOB One card. JannPaul has interest free installments on UOB and if you can get $2k each month for a quarter, you will get back $100 per month or 5%. Better than the 2% cash discount they previously offered (no longer due to complaints).
I began searching for offers and came upon a promotion by OCBC with aMEI’s concert. I quickly returned to JannPaul to pay a further deposit and managed to win a pair of Cat 1 tickets to a concert the day after my proposal. So another happy surprise for my gf!
Proposal tips for flowers: fareastorchid (120 roses with the white side flowers for $88.88) DIY.
If anyone went to the aMEI concert, I am the guy with the bouquet of lighted 110 roses! aMEI seeing my flowers and clapping really made it a concert to remember. My fiance was really afraid that aMEI will steal it. Haha!
The end!
Let me know if you have any queries!
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