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HCA - Defining the Beauty and Desirability of Round Brilliant Diamonds

Brilliant Ideal and Firey Ideal Cuts

The cut adviser system recognizes three distinct types of diamonds with optimum beauty. To qualify as an HCA ‘Ideal Cut’ a diamond must rate as excellent or score less than 2.0.
 
Brilliant Ideal Cuts (BIC) have the highest light return and larger spreads. Fiery Ideal Cuts (FIC) have more fire or spectral color and appear to have more facets and scintillation because of the increased interaction between the steeper crown facets that direct your view deeper and further into the pavilion.
 
Those two factors mean lead some people to feel FIC’s have a ‘romantic’ look, even though they display slightly less brilliance. But because they are smaller than BIC’s, but when spread and cost are considered many consumers trade beauty for desirability and switch to TIC’s or BIC’s.
 
The Tolkowsky Ideal Cuts (TIC) combine a balance of fire and brilliance, but diamonds close to Tolkowsky proportions command a price premium. So again when given the choice it has been my experience that BIC’s have the most demand.
 
This is rather fortuitous because the yields on BIC are better than the other two types of ideal cuts. In fact FIC’s are few and far between.
 

Category	Crown angles (HCA score must be <2.0)
BIC Brilliant Ideal Cut	Crown angle is less than 32.5°
TIC Tolkowsky Ideal Cut	Crown angles between 32.5° and 35.5°
FIC Firey Ideal Cut	Crown angle is more than 35.5°

Brilliant Ideal Cut

Firey Ideal Cut

In the representation the oval shows the approximate range of each classification. Separating diamonds graded as excellent into these sub groupings will assist cutters and dealers in meeting the demands of different markets and will assist in establishing pricing information.

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