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When it comes to color diamonds, Leibish stands out as among the best, with over 50 years of expertise in the industry. With a large in-house inventory, 360-degree view of each stone, excellent customer service and reasonable prices, Leibish is our top pick for purchasing colored diamonds online.
A Brief Overview of the Highlights
- Large in-house colored diamonds inventory
- Impressive collection of diamond and gemstone jewelry
- Access to rare and exclusive diamonds
- Wide range of settings and styles
- Unmatched expertise in setting fancy colored diamonds
- Excellent customer care service
- High quality images and 360-view of stones
- 30 days money back guarantee – no questions asked.
- 2-year warranty on all items and a servicing policy
- Good range of diamond and gemstone education
- High quality packaging
- Lab-report for all diamonds
- Clear and easy-to-navigate website
- Free shipping both ways
- Free 60 day resizing
Things to Consider:
- Settings slightly more expensive than other sites
- Fast-moving inventory
- Online chat service only available at specific times
- Engraving is not free
- No showroom locations
Who is Leibish?
Often considered the best place to buy colored diamonds online, Leibish has established this reputation over 50 years of being in the business. A family business run by founder Leibish Polnauer and his children, the company was established in 1979. They quickly emerged as a top vendor of hard-to-find high-quality diamonds, cementing their name in this competitive industry.
In 1995, Leibish become one of the first companies to sell their diamonds online, demonstrating how they have been able to stay ahead of the game and always anticipate what’s coming around the corner. While their headquarters are in New York, with offices in Israel and Hong Kong, Leibish is an e-commerce shop with no storefront.
What Leibish Offers
Leibish offers a wide range of colored diamonds, gemstones and ready-made fine jewelry as well as several other professional jewelry services.
1. Colored Diamonds
This is their primary focus and the product for which they became famous. Leibish offers a large inventory of loose-colored diamonds on their site, all of which are stocked in-house.
At the time of writing, they have 3690 diamonds ranging from colorless to black listed on their site. They even have relatively large numbers of very rare diamond colors, such as pink, purple and red, thanks to their industry networks and exclusive connections. These gorgeous diamonds are offered in 10 popular gemstone shapes to choose from.
Unlike many other online retailers, Leibish are committed to selling only natural, untreated and unenhanced stones. These are worth a lot more than enhanced diamonds and are also much rarer, making them ideal investment pieces (more on this later).
Whether you are a millionaire looking for an investment stone or an average Joe like the rest of us out to buy something pretty, you’ll be able to find a stone that suits you on Leibish. The prices range depending on the quality factors of the stone.
Because the inventory moves pretty fast, you have to act quickly to make sure you don’t miss out on a particular stone.
2. Gemstones
In recent years, Leibish have expanded their range to include top-quality gemstones. Their current listing offers sapphires, emeralds and rubies as well as semi-precious gemstones, including tourmaline, tanzanite, rubellite and aquamarine.
The selection process is quite rigorous, and the gemstones must be of exceptional quality to be included in the inventory. Each gemstone is hand-selected and subjected to an individual quality assessment before they are listed on the site.
As with the diamonds, none of the stones are treated or enhanced in any way.
3. Bridal Ring Settings
Leibish offers a vast range of ring settings ranging in styles from simple to elaborate. They currently list an impressive array of ring settings, including conventional designs such as solitaire, 3-stone, side diamonds and halo to more extraordinary designs, bands, men’s bands and wedding sets.
They even offer more complicated settings such as tension bands, which are quite complex and require great skill to be set.
In general, the settings from Leibish are beautiful with meticulous attention paid to details. Each is a work of excellent craftsmanship. Also, because of their depth of expertise and knowledge of colored diamonds, they are able to maximize the beauty of the colored diamond by selecting the perfect setting to complement the stone.
4. Fine Diamond and Gemstone Jewelry
Although Leibish offers you the option to create your own rings, earrings and pendants, they also have a wide range of ready-made jewelry on offer.
The collection is categorized into diamonds and gemstones, with each category containing beautifully designed earrings, rings, pendants and bracelets. These are ready to ship as soon as you purchase them.
5. Design Your Own Ring and Jewelry
One of the best features of the Leibish experience is the Create Your Own tool which allows you to create your own jewelry.
Let’s say you wish to create a ring. You would begin by selecting your setting from their wide range and then choose the metal for the ring from 7 popular options (14K and 18K rose, yellow and white gold plus platinum). After selecting your size, you would then match the setting with a diamond or gemstone that goes with it.
When trying out this feature, however, we found that it was very difficult to match a setting with a stone, with the site indicating that there were no items found to match the search. In this case, you would have to contact customer service and put in your requests.
6. Other Services
In addition to gemstones and diamonds, Leibish also offer various professional services. They provide professional appraisals for Fancy Colored jewelry as well as advice on investing in colored diamonds.
Leibish Diamond Inventory
Unlike some other giants in the online jewelry industry, Leibish holds all its inventory in-house. What this means is that they own and stock all their diamonds and gemstones, which makes it possible for them to ensure that each stone passes their first-rate standards. This is also why they are able to provide in-depth data, high-quality images and 360-degree views of all their stones.
As mentioned before, one major point of difference between Leibish and other sites is that all Leibish diamonds are neither enhanced nor treated in any way. Most diamonds and gemstones are heat treated or dyed to achieve a desirable color. Finding a natural color diamond of good quality is truly rare which makes the Leibish collection truly stunning.
Unlike many other diamond companies, Leibish is very particular about its stones, handpicking only the best. Because they have trade agreements with many of the best colored diamond manufacturers, Leibish are able to obtain the best diamonds.
Leibish has access to the invitation-only Argyle Pink Diamonds Tender, which is considered the most exclusive diamond sale in the world. This is where the best and rarest pink diamonds are put on auction.
The company has been winning exclusive and highly-coveted diamonds from the tender, which is no easy feat considering the cut-throat competition for these stones.
All diamonds on offer are ethically sourced and conflict-free, coming from countries such as Australia, Indonesia, African and Russia among others.
The Leibish Shopping Experience
When buying a diamond, colored or colorless, it is critical that you get to see the actual diamond rather than a stock image. With fancy colored diamonds, color is the most important aspect and it directly affects the value and beauty of the stone.
Leibish does an excellent job in this department as they provide a good amount of information for you to make an informed choice about the stone. Their photographs are authentic and show the diamond is it is, without embellishment or airbrushing. Each diamond and gemstone listed on the site comes with at least two high resolution images of the actual stone. These images can be magnified, allowing you to see any miniscule flaws that may be present.
There is also a 360-degree view of the stone that makes it possible to see how the stone interacts with light and the saturation and hue from all angles. Most of the stones are listed with their grading reports from reputable labs, including the GIA, IGI, AGT, Argyle and by their in-house GIA Gemologist.
The Leibish site is easy to navigate and highly user-friendly. When searching for a stone, the search filters enable you to easily sift through their impressive inventory to find a stone that suits you. You can choose from all their diamond colors and shapes as well as the intensity of the stone. The parameters allow you to set your price, carat size and clarity.
For even more information and advanced filtering, you can set the fluorescence, polish and symmetry of the stone according to your liking as well as the type of grading report.
Going ultra-specific on your search filters will make it very difficult for you to find a stone that suits your taste but having the options can narrow down your search based on your priorities.
For those without much knowledge on the subject of diamonds and jewelry, the Leibish education section is quite detailed and offers ample information, including informative articles and fun blog posts.
Seeing the Diamond Before You Buy
Sometimes, seeing images is simply not enough, especially if you plan on investing a large sum of money in a diamond. In this case, physically viewing the diamond is the best way forward.
Leibish has offices in New York, Israel, and Hong Kong where you can arrange to have the diamond shipped for viewing. You would have to make a deposit of 10% of the total cost of the stone if you were to do this, however, this 10% will then be deducted from the price of the stone in case you decide to buy. So, you could think of it as an advance.
If you aren’t near any of those locations, there is the option to have the stone shipped to a Malca Amit viewing station, but this entails a viewing fee.
If all else fails, Liebish provides a 30-day full money back guarantee on their diamonds and jewelry. If you receive the goods and realize that it’s not actually what you were after, you can always return it for a full refund.
Expertise in Craftsmanship
It is true that the Leibish settings and jewelry are a touch more expensive than most other online diamond retailers. But considering the amount of careful and detailed craftsmanship that goes into each piece, we’re sure you would agree that it’s worth the price you pay.
The most important aspect of a colored diamond is its color. When choosing the cut and the setting for the colored diamonds, the chief aim of the designers is to maximize the hue and intensity of the stone and to bring out its color to the best effect.
If the stone is not set properly and the quality of the jewelry is low, the diamond’s color and quality will be negatively affected. This is one area that the Leibish team excels in. Their in-depth knowledge and expertise in fancy colored diamonds can be seen in their jewelry settings and is unmatched in the colored diamond industry.
Let’s take a look at an example.
This fancy deep yellow diamond is set in a platinum setting with a yellow gold basket. The color of the basket brings out the hue of the yellow diamond, giving it a vibrant intensity.
Likewise, take a look at the brown diamond in the rose gold setting below. As you can see, the rose gold accentuates the brown hue, softening its color and enhancing its blush tones. The white melee diamonds in the halo and the eternity band add the right amount of contrast to set the brown diamond off to perfection.
It’s safe to say that Leibish is among the best of the best when it comes to setting fancy colored diamonds. You can be sure that the diamond you choose will be set to perfection and its color maximized by the Leibish team.
Customer Service
Leibish has excellent customer service that makes it quite a pleasant experience to shop from them. Their sales representatives are pleasant and knowledgeable, taking the time to answer all your questions, even if they may be testing, irrelevant or time-consuming.
The online chat option is a major benefit as it’s always good to be able to have your questions answered before you buy. However, they don’t offer a 24/7 which can make it difficult at times for international shoppers.
There is also a toll-free number if you prefer calling as well as an email address. In all cases, the response is prompt and pleasant.
Investment Advice
The colored diamond and gemstone industry is booming, and prices of precious gemstones have been consistently increasing over the last three decades. With supply diminishing and famous mines such as the Argyle Mine in Australia announcing their suspected closure, the demand for colored diamonds are only going to increase as will the prices.
Leibish hold a number of highly investable diamonds and they provide advice to assist you in making the right investment choice.
Not every diamond is an investment, especially if it is heat treated or enhanced in any way. What’s more, certain colors don’t hold the same value as others. Leibish offer sound investment advice and give you a look into the ins and outs of investing in diamonds.
Packaging
You wouldn’t buy an expensive bottle of wine and serve it in a plastic cup, would you? Likewise, when you purchase a valuable item of jewelry, you expect it to arrive in packaging that fits its status.
The Leibish packaging is sophisticated, with meticulous attention paid to the details. It comes in a beautiful high-quality box, along with all the documentation, including the certificate of authenticity, the invoice and other relevant information.
The Fine Print – Returns, Warranty and Financing Options
1. 30 Day Money Back Guarantee
Leibish stand by the quality of their products, offering a 30 day money back guarantee – no questions asked. This is sufficient time for even the most indecisive person to make a decision about their purchase. However, there is a caveat to this. Custom orders are non-refundable.
2. Financing Options
If you don’t want to part with a large wad of cash all at once, Leibish offers you the option of paying for your jewelry in 6 instalments. This is an interest-free option that’s very easy to access and fits every budget.
3. Warranty
Leibish guarantee that all their diamonds are natural and untreated, offering a Natural Diamond Warranty. Their jewelry comes with 2-year warranty for repairs and servicing.
4. Resizing Your Ring
Leibish offer you one free resizing (subsequent resizings will need to be paid for) within the first two months of purchase. Check whether your particular ring can be resized before you buy.
5. Shipping Policy
Leibish ships their diamonds out within 3 to 5 days of receiving your payment. They provide free insured shipping both ways, meaning that if you aren’t happy with your purchase, they shoulder the cost of shipping the items back to them.
6. Philanthropy
Leibish supports the charity group Sightsavers, which champions the rights of people with disabilities. Leibish guarantees that a portion of all sales goes to Sightsavers. They’ll even tell you how much of your purchase will be donated, which we find is a considerate touch.
Wrapping Up
To sum up, Leibish is the place to go if you’re looking for the highest quality in colored diamonds and gemstones. Their jewelry is also exquisitely crafted and overall their services and quality is top-notch. However, naturally, this all comes with a premium and you’ll find that the prices are higher than most other places. If budget is your top concern, you might find Leibish a little restrictive, but if you’re after the very best in quality and craftsmanship, you can’t do much better than Leibish.
