High-quality gemstone faceting is the way of the future

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PinkDiamond
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High-quality gemstone faceting is the way of the future

Post by PinkDiamond »

This is most certainly true. Those native cuts look pathetic, and I can't begin to tell you how often people in the trade have told me they had a fine gemstone that they had to send out for re-cutting to make it look its best, because of shoddy native cutting geared toward maximizing the size of the stone, at the expense of its beauty, which adds more cost to the gem that the seller has to recoup at the time of sale. :?

High-quality gemstone faceting is the way of the future
Posted December 01, 2017 | By Victor Tuzlukov

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"The commercial realities of gem-cutting means there is little emphasis placed on high-quality gemstone faceting. Victor Tuzlukov discusses why this is detrimental to the industry and its future.

Today there are not many well-faceted gemstones on the market. Aiming to obtain as great a carat yield as possible from an irregular piece of rough, using various methods to squeeze one of several classic cuts out of the gemstone while bypassing visible inclusions at the expense of symmetry, a gem-cutter aims to give a gemstone a finished look.

Since each carat is real money, gem-cutters and sellers shut their eyes to optical defects. As a result, most gemstones that leave the hands of these gem-cutters have a ‘window’ in which any objects in a gemstone become visible. The area around the window looks dark, hence it reflects the surroundings, and the angle of the side facets near the girdle is too big. Such an approach to gem-cutting has become the norm.

This is curious because the main task of a gem-cutter is not to make a gemstone more beautiful with a desire to save its weight but to make it ... "

http://www.jewellermagazine.com/Article ... the-future

*I corrected a typo in the third paragraph from moey, to money*
PinkDiamond
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crazy8s
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Re: High-quality gemstone faceting is the way of the future

Post by crazy8s »

Love the articles :!: :)
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rocks2dust
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Re: High-quality gemstone faceting is the way of the future

Post by rocks2dust »

I've noticed a marked increase in the use of automated precision faceting even among 3rd World cutters, and increasingly complex cuts being churned out from these machines. And it is no longer just diamonds being spit out by these machines, but an ever greater variety of colored stones, too. So, yes, I agree that perfect angles with better polishes will become more the norm for the marketplace, driven by demand from American tastemakers (this isn't viewed as very important outside the Northern Hemisphere). But are perfect cuts necessarily desirable? A good polish has more going for it than so in my opinion, than any increased sparkle from ideal facet angles. From my art history background, I fully expect that among more sophisticated tastes there will be a reaction to cookie-cutter perfection at the high end - indeed, I think we've been seeing it for some years. Ideal angles aren't possible with most custom facet designs, nor are they always desirable. And not everyone is interested in maximizing light return and other "glitzy" attributes, though those may be important when a given stone has nothing else going for it.

Less than ideal angles can enhance a stone's color and brightness, and allow for more interesting designs. Windowing can be a positive thing for stones with certain properties (and can also be dealt with when designing the setting). Inclusions can be a fascinating world in themselves, and to certain tastes are far more interesting than flawless stones that might as well be CZ for all their owners know - or probably would care to learn. I don't know many who would argue for recutting the Hope Diamond because it is windowed (indeed, I hate the very mindset that resulted in it being recut from the original French Blue in the name of "improving" it). As much as the Internet has widened the availability of gemstones, I do think we've gotten away from the importance of looking at stones in-person and selecting something that appeals to us (whatever the technical merits or current taste being promoted).

The top names in the faceting world have made their reputations on custom work that is more akin to sculpture than technical perfection - and the demand for their work has long outstripped their ability to satisfy it (some readily admit that much of what they offer doesn't come from their hand, but like Tiffany and others before, is resold from other sources). The work of hand craftsmen has, more often than not, been valued over technical precision. An uninteresting robo-world where everything is flawless and boring perfection holds little appeal to me.
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Artfldgr
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Re: High-quality gemstone faceting is the way of the future

Post by Artfldgr »

yup
but there is also an area that makes more money that way
i have a friend whose diamond cutter are stupendous.. best cutting i see
but he is a bit bent around the edges so we get diamonds of better quality and lesser cut instead if we need to for a friend

i have a bunch of stones that if there is a faceter here willing to rework them they can split whatever they get for them with me
they are stones that were replaced and have a nick or scratch.. got a good amount of them..
:)
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