Recut from Fancy Intense to Fancy Vivid Purplish Pink

[kenny]

http://www.fancydiamonds.net/diamond_education/articles/the_leibish_prosperity_pink-1-68ct_vivid_argyle_pink_diamond.htm

I think this is so cool.

Leibish won 6 Argyle tender stones this year.
One of them was a 1.71 ct Fancy Intense Purplish Pink, per GIA.
They recut it, losing only 3 points, and now GIA grades it Fancy Vivid Purplish Pink!

I'm astonished Argyle's people let so much money slip between their fingers and kudos to Shmulik, Leibish's GG.

 

[Asscherhalo_lover]

I wonder if they had that in mind when they bid on it! I would also love to know how much they increased the value!

 

[movie zombie]

and that is why they're "in the business"....they've got the eye for a deal and know how to maximize for profit. lovely stone!

 

[distracts]

Wow, that's neat. The diamond looks SO good. I don't even want to know how much it costs (and how much I can't afford it).

 

[kenny]

I wonder if they had that in mind when they bid on it! I would also love to know how much they increased the value!

I wonder also, but I'm sure that is very proprietary info we could never learn.

While googling around I DID find this article from 2007 JCK in which JCK was allowed into the Argyle Tender auction.
They brought along the top FCD expert, Stephen Hofer.

The article ends with a hint to the answer to your question.

http://www.jckonline.com/2007/01/01/jck-exclusive-argyle-tender-offers-pick-pinks

Here is a partial snip from the article:

As we looked over this year's selection, we spotted a trend that Hofer thought provided an exciting opportunity for bidders: Many of the pinks were emerald cuts, which, if recut into radiants, might be regraded as purplish-reds.

“The fact the Argyle has given diamond manufacturers room to work with provides ample incentive for profit-driven individuals to recut certain stones and then resubmit them to GIA in hopes of getting a better grade (i.e., 'red' on the report),” writes Hofer.

That opinion was not shared by Aurora Gems' Alan Bronstein, owner of the Aurora Collection. “The emerald cut is so much more elegant,” he says. “I wouldn't think that recutting to a radiant cut would be an option.

“It's not just about the shape preference of emerald cut over radiant,” Bronstein adds. “The line between deep purplish pink and purplish red is a very fine line, and darkening the face-up color to achieve red on a certificate doesn't necessarily make the stone more beautiful or rare. The certificate is more rare and therefore perceived as more valuable. If the stone has life and is red, then it is a true gem. I like seeing that in any shape.”

“I agree with Alan Bronstein,” writes Jordan Fine, vice president of Amgad in New York, another bidder. “The elegance and beauty of an emerald-cut pink diamond is unrivaled, especially emerald cuts deep in color.”

But Fine doesn't rule out recutting for additional profit potential, and he notes that Amgad is evaluating one of the stones it won for a possible recut into a Fancy Purplish-Red or Fancy Vivid Pink. “The possibility of recutting a deep pink to a purplish red (or even vivid pink) is very enticing, especially when one considers the additional $100,000-plus per carat that can be obtained in the market,” he says.

 

[kenny]

In the article above, Mr. Hofer mentioned that some Fancy Deep Pink Emerald cut diamonds can be recut into Radiants to shoot for the coveted Red grade from GIA.

That really got my attention.
I thought . . . HEY! I gots me one of those.
It was my first FCD.

My Emerald Cut is a 0.27 ct. Fancy Deep Purplish Pink.
My Red is only 0.10 ct., but GIA graded it pure Red, and look how close they are in color in the pic below.

I wonder if recutting it into a radiant would keep the light bouncing around long enough pick up enough color to bump it into GIA's Purplish Red grade.

Plus GIA graded the clarity VVS1.
The only flaw is a shallow indented natural on one of the short sides of the girdle (see pic below).
Polishing that off to shoot for IF clarity would not lower the weight much.

The recut above of the huge diamond lost only 3 points (1.8%), but it went from Radiant to Radiant, a less radical transformation.
Even if I lost 4 points (15%) a 0.23 ct IF Purplish Red would be worth several times that of a FDpP VVS1 - and maybe it could be even held to 0.25 ct.
Look at this listing, $112K for an 0.22 ct SI1 : http://www.fancydiamonds.net/view_diamonds/3205.htm



Hmmmmm.



The natural looks humongous in this highly-magnified pic, but it's tiny and shallow.

 

[chrono]

I am VERY sure it is uncommon to recut a stone to have the saturation increase; it takes a certain material and obviously, superb eyes and experience to pick out the right stone (and cut to do so). I presume the original is also a radiant cut, since the ct weight loss is only 3 points? So it's just minor tweaking? It must have been just at the cusp of the saturation range between vivid and intense, where the adjustment pushed it into the higher range.

 

[kenny]

Thanks Chrono, excellent point.

I realize the odds of recutting it to multiply its value near ten times by getting GIA's Red grade are not in my favor.
It came from Leibish after Hofer was quoted in this 2007 article; if it had Red-potential Leibish probably would have recut it.

Despite the odds, the size of the possible payoff is tempting, and it is harmless and fun to fantasize about our baubles.

Even if it came back a 0.23 ct Fancy Deep Purplish Pink Radiant it would still be a very cool diamond, and an Internally Flawless grade wouldn't hurt the value any.

Leaving it alone is cool to.
I now think of it as a sleeping Red - and those large flashes from the classic Emerald Cut are lovely to enjoy when diamonds are this small.

 

[ideal5555]

That is soooooooooooooo cool!

Thanks for sharing Kenny.

 

[TristanC]

I wonder if Leibish would be able to get Argyle to issue a follow up on the Argyle certification about the recut. It seems a bit odd to me to have a gem with 2 differing weights.

I would be glad that I owned a vivid, but it seems weird somehow...

 

[kenny]

I wonder if Leibish would be able to get Argyle to issue a follow up on the Argyle certification about the recut. It seems a bit odd to me to have a gem with 2 differing weights.

I would be glad that I owned a vivid, but it seems weird somehow...

We can only speculate.
I've heard Argyle is somewhat unresponsive to requests regarding their stones.
But since this is a Tender stone and Leibish is an important client perhaps they'd regrade it and issue a new Argyle certificate bumping up their Argyle color grade from 3PP to 2PP.
Then again, being a prestigious tender stone that they cut and auctioned as a Fancy Intense for a lower price than they could have gotten had they cut it for GIA's Vivid grade, perhaps they'd be annoyed about all this.
If I was Argyle's cut-decision maker in Perth I'd be a tad embarrassed right now.
I mean it's not like they recut an Emerald cut into a radiant and lost a lot of weight; the recut was only a slight tweak of the existing cut.
To me this appears to be a correction of someone else's mistake.

If I had the funds I'd have no qualms about buying it with "the two weights", knowing full well I'd be paying for a 1.68 ct Fancy Vivid while Leibish paid for a 1.71 ct Fancy Intense.
Such is business.

Leibish has been very transparent about the stones provenance; they even published that whole page on their website about it.
It's not as though a competitor or journalist discovered and revealed that something sneaky has taken place.
Cutting for the highest GIA color grade is not the exception for FCDs; it is the rule.
We just don't get to witness the decision making process.
Actually, for me, peeking through the window is what made this whole project so cool.

 

[Indylady]

This is such a neat thread--just came across it!

 

[corundum_conundrum]

Kenny,

They just repolished the stone, right? Hence just the 3 points lost...