Hearts and Arrows Diamonds: The Most Ideal Cut
Have you heard of Hearts and Arrows diamonds?
If you are in the market for a round brilliant diamond you may have heard of this beyond-ideal cut.
But you might be asking yourself, why would I, or wouldn’t I, get this stone?
What it is
Let's start with the basic facts.
Hearts and Arrows cut diamonds are a perfectly proportional, or at least eye-perfect, cut of round brilliants with the traditional 57 facets (58 if you are counting the culet).
They’re cut and polished to such an exacting caliber that they have almost no light leakage, which results in not only a magnificent display of fire, scintillation, and brilliance, but also the optical effect of a wheel of 8 clock-hand like arrows if viewed down through the table.
However, one wheel of eight a Hearts and Arrows diamond does not make.
When viewed with a special tool designed to view the amount of light leakage in a stone you can see a wheel of eight arrows when looking down through the top of the stone, and when flipped over, a wheel of eight hearts.
Hearts and Arrows Diamonds are cut using high levels of magnification to ensure that the proportions are tuned to perfection. Less than 1% of diamonds ever make it to the end of this daunting cutting process to be certified Hearts and Arrows.
Where it came from:
Hearts and Arrows diamonds were part innovation, part discovery.
A perfectly proportional and symmetrical diamond has been the dream of many for centuries, though we have only been able to start cutting into the dream recently. The Ideal cut- for about a century the closest we could get, was a mathematically perfect diamond cut developed by the renowned diamond expert Marcel Tolkowsky. However, the ability to determine how much light was actually leaking out remained an issue.
While the problem of light leakage in diamonds has been studied for decades the ability to measure it easily is a relatively recent innovation. When Japanese diamond experts in the 1980’s designed a tool to measure light leakage that was inexpensive and easy to use, they were shocked to discover that even many Ideal cut diamonds leaked tremendous amounts of light.
Messrs. Tamura & Higuchi’s innovation led them to cut a diamond that leaked no light, or almost no light, whatsoever.
Their original EightStar Diamond was the direct predecessor of the Hearts and Arrows Diamond.
So why wouldn’t you want this fine specimen of light play?
Well, if you are looking for a Hearts and Arrows diamond so that you can see the romantic wheels turning inside the stone, you may be disappointed. You need that special tool to view those optical effects, and it won’t work once you’ve set the diamond.
That being said, there are very good reasons to get such a magnificent stone.
It’s a guarantee of the stone's quality, as each Heart and Arrows diamond sold by Michael Gabriels has had third-party grading by IGI to ensure that it meets not only industry standards but also our own.
Because of their perfected proportions, they do tend to be unmistakably greater in quality than most stones not also in the Ideal category.
While they are still rare, recent growth in available Lab-grown rough stones of high gem-quality has led to greater availability of those stones on the market; and of those from Lab-grown origins, at more economical prices.
Lastly, there is no doubt that these are among the most romantic of stones. With a full cupid effect locked away inside of them, it is a perfect way to show love, devotion and appreciation, to yourself or someone else.