Cut
The only one of the four that is entirely human.
Colour, clarity and weight are decided in the ground. Cut is decided by a person, in a room, over several days. A brilliant of ordinary colour cut exactly will out-perform a flawless stone cut carelessly, every time and in any light. We buy for cut first and argue about the rest afterwards.
Cut is the only one of the four a human being is responsible for.
Colour
Graded by absence, from D downward.
D through F are colourless and command the premium. G through J are near-colourless and, mounted in yellow gold, are indistinguishable to the eye from D — the metal warms the stone regardless. Our advice is unfashionable: buy colour to suit the metal, not the certificate.
Buy colour to suit the metal, not the certificate.
Clarity
What the loupe sees, and what the eye does not.
VS1 and above is our floor, not because inclusions at SI1 are visible — usually they are not — but because a stone that will be worn every day for fifty years should have no structural excuse to fail. Clarity, for us, is a durability question before it is an aesthetic one.
Clarity is a durability question before it is an aesthetic one.
Carat
Weight, which is not the same as size.
Two stones of identical weight can differ by a full millimetre across the face, depending on how deeply the cutter chose to keep the weight. We measure the spread and quote it alongside the carat, because the spread is what your hand actually sees.
We quote the spread, because the spread is what your hand sees.