How to Buy a Diamond by Fred Cuellar

Author:Fred Cuellar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2018-12-04T16:00:00+00:00

THE “TRUE WEIGHT” OF DIAMONDS

One-carat diamonds offered for sale rarely truly weigh one carat if cut correctly.

Let me explain. Diamonds are a lot like people. They come in all shapes and sizes, and just like people, they can carry a little extra weight. In fact, in the community of diamonds, more diamonds are “overweight” than in the community of people: up to 88 percent of all diamonds. The sad part is that it’s the diamond industry that is purposely producing all of these chubby diamonds! In 1919, over eighty years ago, a gentleman by the name of Marcel Tolkowsky determined that the diamond industry as a whole was cutting diamonds incorrectly and adversely affecting the diamond’s sparkle. Mr. Tolkowsky released a paper on the correct way to cut a diamond so it would have maximum sparkle (light return), no excess body fat. The Tolkowsky cut ended up becoming the American ideal. Subsequently, in the 1950s, a gentleman by the name of R. W. Ditchburn applied the same mathematics in order to trim the fat off the other shapes (marquise, pear, oval, etc.). For decades, if you asked for a well-cut “Ideal” diamond of a particular size, you got it. Then the marketers convinced the public that a one-carat diamond or more was the dream size. That’s where the problems crept in. Diamond cutters all over the world started inventing their own criteria for “a well-proportioned stone” so they could fatten up the diamond. Clearly, we have a problem when 75 to 88 percent of all one-carat diamonds are overweight! Just like in the old commercial where there was a whole lot of bun and very little meat, we are running into the same problem today with diamonds that should be one carat but are cut fat so that they will tip the scales over one carat.

The only way the problem is going to be solved is for the diamond-buying public to start asking for the diamond’s “True Weight.” True Weight is a diamond in which the crown height plus max girdle thickness plus pavilion depth equals the total depth percentage and whose proportions meet class I or class II criteria. I’ve never met a jeweler who will volunteer to the consumer that the device used to measure the diamond’s vitals (Sarin or Megascope machine) also has a button to measure fat content! It’s called the recut feature.

Once a diamond has been analyzed, all the grader has to do is enter the recorded data into the recut program, enter the desired results (like a plastic surgeon showing you what your nose will look like after the surgery), and click the mouse. In seconds, the recut program will announce what the diamond should have weighed if it had been cut correctly v. its current weight. Practically every diamond I see is overweight by 20 to 30 percent!

It is the diamond’s “True Weight” we should be paying for, not extra love handles left on by the cutter. If enough of us demand to

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