Diamond Cut

Welcome back. I am Ronnie Mervis with Mervis Diamond Importers. We are going to talk about cut, the most important of the four C's. Previously, we have spoken about shape and I made a point that one shouldn't confuse diamond shape with cut.

Shape is demonstrated by what I am showing you right now; it is the actual physical shape of the diamond and it is a Radiant cut. Other example of a shape would be this one, this is round and it is a traditional, exactly like it says round. Now diamond cut means a different thing all together.

Cut as oppose to shape relates to the exact proportions of a diamond. Now this beautiful diamond that I am holding up and I have got you fooled, it is not a diamond it is a replica. I wish it was a diamond that is bigger than my fist and would be worth about, I don't know, well I would take a guess, 50 million, but it is not.

It shows you however, the angles of the diamond. At the top we have the crown, above the -- this is called the girdle, the edge around the sides is called the girdle. Every thing above the Girdle is called the crown, every thing below the girdle is called the Pavilion and the one in the middle facing you is the table. You don't have to remember these words, but you do have to remember the main point that I am about to make and I haven't made it yet.

The beauty of the diamond and that's its beauty, everything is about beauty. The beauty of a diamond comes from the way; the diamond absorbs and returns light back to the eye, in a well cut diamond. Diamond comes in through the top, refracts around, comes back to the top, you get the maximum brilliance, the maximum fire maximum scintillation, sparkle and many other beautiful words which I can keep pointing out to you, time doesn't permit us, but really you get the beauty, fire, flash, the excitement of the diamond.

I am now going to give you a graphic demonstration of what we have been talking about. The camera will show you an outline of a perfectly cut diamond. You will see that, I don't if you can see it, I hope the camera can get it, there is a little arrow showing you light coming in, refracting around the internally, bouncing back up, out at diamond. All the light in this diagram is coming back out of the top and so the diamond is very bright.

Two of the most common mistakes made when people cut diamonds, is that the diamond is either to cut too shallow or too deep. Here is what happens if it is wrong. At the top we have a well cut diamond, here we have one that is just a little bit too deep and you see that the light coming in, is refracting incorrectly at the bottom and leaking out of the bottom, you are losing light, it is inefficient that's because the diamond is too deep. Yet to the right there is a diamond that is too shallow and let's go back a little bit try to visualize that distance, get any idea in your mind, here you can see it deeper and there you can see it is shallower. Some of the light which should be coming out to your eye over there is coming out of this side and getting lost. Now, we are going down to two more examples where it is even more over stated. Here is one too deep, too deep, that one is just a little deep, this is too deep, you can see light is leaking out of the bottom. Instead of all of the light coming out of the top, half the light is coming out of the top, the rest is leaking out and here we have one which is really much too shallow, too-too shallow and again you can see light is leaking out of the bottom; the result, if you buy diamond that is too deep or too shallow or faulty in many other ways, we can't get in to the all of that right now, you are losing brilliance.

So, you are paying a buck, but you are getting $0.70 worth. I far prefer it for your buck, or your 100 bucks, or your 1000 or your 10000, you got all the money's worth of light back, because the diamond is meant to be beautiful.

The diamond has value for two reasons. One is that it is very rare mineral, it is hard to come by and a tremendous amount of work goes into mining it, getting these diamonds out of the ground and putting them on your finger or her finger, we should say. The purpose of putting at there is because we want the maximum light, brilliance, excitement out of it and there is no reason to lose any of that. So, watch for diamond cut, get the best cut you can get.

I would like to tell you that we are going to talk about in the next three or four clips, we are going to talk about, color, clarity and carat weight, they are all important, but in the end they can't all be equally important. Some have to be more important than others; some has to be less important than others.

As long as we are talking about the most important C, at this stage I think it is appropriate for me to tell you that the most important C of the four C's is cut, because it determines the brilliance and if you have a brilliant stone, you can afford to compromise somewhere else, but if you have a less than brilliance stone, there is no point in picking it up anywhere else, you just can't do it.

So, go for the best cut you can go for each and every time. Thank you, Ronnie Mervis signing off, please don't go away. We would like to see you back, because in the next clip we are going to talk about diamond clarity. Thank you.