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Leibish the Man
In 1979, Leibish Polnauer stumbled into the business of selling diamonds quite unexpectedly. He had just discovered that the polishing factory where he was working had been shut down. He was reading The Guardian traveling to London when he saw an ad from the royal crown jeweller Garrard & Co.
They were looking for a certain specific hard-to-find diamond. Leibish, then an adventurous and enterprising young man, decided to give them a call to see what would happen. Well, he spoke to the general manager and promised delivery for this stone, and many others he mentioned he was looking for.
Leibish scoured the market over three continents and delivered every stone Garrard was looking for.
Leibish was hooked, and a legend was born.
Leibish & Co is Born
In the nearly three decades since that fateful day, the name Leibish Polnauer has come to be synonymous with excellence in the world of Fancy Color Diamonds.
Leibish & Co are consistently one of the largest buyers at the annual prestigious Argyle tender. They likewise supply many of the world’s largest luxury jewelers, including the likes of Graff.
In 1995, Leibish became one of the first companies to sell diamonds online. They were almost certainly the first true wholesaler/dealer to sell directly to the consumer on the Internet.
Over time Leibish’s children entered the company. Yossi acts as the company CEO. Shmulik is the Chief Diamond Buyer. Itzik is the online guru while Chavi handles jewelry design. The youngest, Yoni, now works for the company as well.
Why you should trust us
To help you with the diamond buying process we lean on our expertise and experience. The author of this article, our CEO, Mike Fried has over 20 years of experience in the diamond industry. Mike started from the bottom, sorting and evaluating hundreds of thousands of diamonds to learn every facet (pun intended) of diamond quality and value. Mike followed that up by spending years buying and selling diamonds on the wholesale market as well as selling tens of millions of dollars worth of diamonds to diamond retailers.
Price and Rarity
Leibish diamonds are focused on the rarest of fancy colors that you can find. As diamonds increase in rarity, their price increases exponentially. If you are considering a diamond from Leibish, you will be getting something few places in the world can offer.
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The Experience of Buying Leibish diamonds
I already know Leibish is the best source for Fancy Color loose diamonds from my experience in the industry. So for this review, I decided to focus more on their jewelry.
Jewelry quality, when it comes to fancy colors, is equally as important as the diamond itself. An improperly set fancy color diamond can lose a tremendous amount of color intensity just as a properly set colored stone can be markedly enhanced.
I contacted Leibish looking for a fancy colored diamond as if I were a regular customer. I spoke with Mali over the phone. She was extremely patient with me and answered every one of my test questions correctly and in a manner that reflected more of a concern with my education than with her selling.
I decided to order two pre-set rings.
The first one was a 1.20ct fancy intense yellow cushion cut set in a half-carat pave halo.
For the second ring, I decided to put Leibish’s recent move into gemstones to the test. So I ordered this 0.65ct round green emerald set in a double yellow-white halo.
The Results
The Packaging
I was impressed when the rings arrived exactly when promised.
Unlike most vendors out there (with the notable exception of James Allen), Leibish’s packaging was well thought-out and elegant – befitting the stature of fancy colors.
Opening the Fedex box, you are immediately presented with the handsome outer brown box. Lifting its lid, you find your jewelry box fitted snuggly into a cradle while your new ring and diamond’s documentation is on the right in a specially designed cradle. The documentation includes the diamond’s certificate, the invoice, some information about the company, and an appraisal for insurance purposes.
The Fancy Intense Yellow Ring
The ring we ordered has a total carat weight of 1.69ct. the center diamond weighs 1.20ct and it is graded Fancy Intense Yellow by GIA.
The clarity is VS1 and the stone has no fluorescence. Fluorescence is generally a negative trait when it comes to colorless diamonds, but with Fancy Yellow diamonds it’s fine as long as it doesn’t affect the beauty of the stone. Overall this diamond was incredible and is what we expect from a Leibish diamond ring.
As I mentioned earlier, the jewelry department at Leibish are true experts when it comes to setting fancy color diamonds. The color on this center stone exploded a deep yellow hue as soon as the ring box was opened. The white halo (comprised of D-E-F color ideal cut stones) provided a strong contrast to bring out the color even more.
The Round Emerald Double Halo
The second ring we ordered has a 0.65ct Zambian round green emerald as its center stone. The center stone is surrounded by two halos.
The inner halo is a circle of fancy intense yellow pave stones (set in yellow or rose gold to maximize the intensity of the color).
The outer halo is comprised of colorless ideal cut diamonds of the highest color and cut quality (clarity matters very little when it comes to pave stones).
The Value?
According to Brittany Siminitz of JCK “…Leibish & Co. is the leading source for natural colored diamonds and jewelry.” We couldn’t agree more! There are other options for fancy colors. But we have found Leibish to be head and shoulders above the competition.
But as we explain in many other places (but in particular in our article about diamond clarity chart), it is almost always essential that you be able to review a high quality photograph of a diamond before you purchase it.
As true as that is regarding colorless diamonds to be able to inspect their shape (in the case of fancy shapes) and clarity (particularly in VS1 and below grades), it always the case regarding fancy color diamonds.
Within each fancy color grade, there can be a very wide range of color strengths. Furthermore, it’s very common to see stones that received particularly “lucky” or “harsh” grades.
This restriction, therefore, limits your choices to James Allen & Leibish.
If you’ve spent any time on our site, it’s easy to see that we are very big fans of James Allen. But when it comes to Fancy Colors like yellow or black diamonds, we lean a bit towards Leibish for two reasons.
Firstly, while James Allen virtually lists diamonds, Leibish actually owns their diamonds. Now with most online vendors that own their own diamonds, this is a negative, as it means their prices need to be higher to offset their high inventory costs.
But this is not the case with Leibish, which is a true wholesale company. They are more akin to James Allen’s suppliers than their competitors.
Secondly, Leibish’s expertise in the world of Fancy Colors is unmatched. This isn’t just important in terms of making sure you choose a nice stone – it’s critical when it comes to setting a fancy color diamond properly to maximize the beauty of the colored stone.
Terms, Policies & Warranty
- Shipping: Leibish provides overnight, insured shipping for all products. Most of their diamonds also have a ’48 hour shipping’ designation which means that they are in their office and will be shipped out within two days.
- Returns: Leibish offers a 30 day money back guarantee. As long as you follow their conditions, just send the ring back and you will receive a full refund.
- Warranty: Leibish provides a full warranty on any manufacturing defects. You can read more about it here.
What we love about them:
- Largest and best inventory of fancy color diamonds
- Best prices for fancy color diamonds
- Industry leading expertise will ensure the color of your diamond is maximized in its setting
- Leading bidders in the annual Argyle auction
- Highest quality jewelry available online
- Free shipping
- Free resizing within first 2 years of purchase
- Items comes with professional appraisal for insurance
- 30 day no questions asked free return policy
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