Cut

Cutting transforms a diamond pebble into a sparkling gem. It is said that 98% a diamond's life and sparkle comes from its Cut! But unlike Carat - Cut is complex and the least understood of he 4 C's. The industries peak standards body, the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has no grading standard for the quality of a diamonds Cut. Why? Because the jury is still out.

My training as a geologist helped me understand what makes a diamond beautiful. In 1984 I wrote a thesis on the Firescope™ and then 8 years later I had an opportunity to apply my theories when I began to buy blind, unseen diamonds direct from overseas cutters (via a B2B site). I refined my study and established my own Ideal Cut proportion standard. This enabled Precious Metals to cut out the middle-men and sell the most beautiful diamonds at better prices.

The picture (top right) shows a diamond that is cut too deeply and light is leaking out the back. This is seen as white in the Ideal-scope™ image; the diamond looks dull and drab and has a smaller spread . Ideal cut diamonds, as seen bottom right, look red (with a star shaped black pattern).