fundamental question: who cuts diamonds?

Whiteflash and Infinity I believe cut their own.

Superbcert... i cant remember - heard conflicting stories... from they cut their own to cherry pickfrom others.

GoG & NiceIce both pick em from wholesellers i believe, as does Winfields

Whiteflash aca - cut under contract under Brians watchful eye on a private line.
Whiteflash - ES - selected

infinity - Which is carried by Wink and diamondexpert cuts his own.

GOG & niceice - selects the best from a variety of suppliers to offer their clients.

I''m a bit unclear about SuberbCert, too.  I think WF has a dedicated relationship with like one vendor, so -- can provide direct supervision; define that as you will.  And Infinity does clearly its own cutting, right? But then, they only work through vendors...and btw...I hear they''re coming to DC, and an outlet near you (er...me).

Not wanting to interrupt this thread...at least too much...but on a related question of "how to cut a diamond".... Google tells me Ludel has a book on it....but a paragraph will do just fine for me, if anyone is willing to clarify more.

I''m imagining it''s got to be largely an architect''s work, but still, somehow a cross between a guy with a chisel, and a guy that puts rough into a machine, effectively pushes a button, and out comes a diamond.

I understand that a diamond will interact with other diamond type material in their creation, in creating the girdle, right?  But...less about the processes the diamond goes through...and more about what a person actually does to create one of these guys...I''d be interested in knowing more.

I¡¦m sure someone from WF will clear this up.  But the way it comes into my mind from previous questions asked is that the ACA was cut and developed by Brian¡K hence his name Brian the cutter

Brian that is Brian¡K *ok ill leave the Monty Python jokes to one side* .. always look on the briiieeght side of life¡K.

Anyways... as demand exceeded supply WF had cutters in Antwerp in several factories cutting the WF specifications¡K with changes in Debeers¡K this was reduced down to one cut house¡K which cut exclusively for WF.

ACA diamonds are cut basically ¡¥in-house¡¦ at a factory in Antwerp that only cut for WF
ES diamonds are either those that didn¡¦t make the grade for ACA when viewed by head office, but where kept on to go into the ES line, or they are diamonds viewed from other wholesaler stock and picked for their attributes and performance. This is not necessarily the presence of H&A imagry ¡V but more to do with look and light return.

Infinity seem to operate in the same way as 8* they cut ¡¥em, and pass them onto their preferred dealers for sale.

Date: 6/8/2005 9:41:37 AM
Author: Lord Summerisle

I¡¦m sure someone from WF will clear this up. But the way it comes into my mind from previous questions asked is that the ACA was cut and developed by Brian¡K hence his name Brian the cutter

Brian's family has been cutting for 5 generations so he was "The Cutter" before he developed ACA, but your observations are on-target.  You've done your homework.

Here's an ACA history and an overview of sourcing for all diamonds available at WF (reproduced from a prior thread).

When Brian began producing ACA, first with Alpha Creations and then with Whiteflash, he cut exclusively in Houston. Back then he bought rough on the open market or recut stones to meet his tolerances. This continued until demand grew and he had to find more supply. At one point he was buying rough, recutting diamonds and dealing with 3 different factories to maintain inventory. However, 2 of the 3 could not produce on a consistent enough basis to meet ACA standards.

Then several years ago DeBeers forced the issue with their “Supplier of Choice” change, so Brian made an aggressive deal and moved all production to our Antwerp based sightholder. Their factory changed its entire fine-make production to accommodate WhiteFlash. So now they alone produce all ACA - none are cut elsewhere. Brian travels to Antwerp around 10 times a year to oversee and evolve production as necessary…When we began producing New Line (cut for Classic ACA visual balance combined with a limited leakage IdealScope footprint) Brian worked with factory managers designing an entirely new set of paradigms. Now both Classic and New Line ACA are produced there according to his specifications for major and minor facet configuration. Josh Rioux did a nice workup on the differences for the glossary, here.. It’s a good situation for us because continued study and refinement is able to take place constantly now.

Expert Selection diamonds come from the same Antwerp sightholder.  Some rounds are ACA candidates that didn’t make the grade, but all of them are hand-selected by Brian to appear in the ES inventory, so we don't like to call them "ACA booboos." Of course, we do not absorb every non-ACA diamond produced so there are a fair number of diamonds sold to other suppliers that are Brian’s brainchildren.

As for Loose Diamonds (virtual database) I’m sure you know that this is the same list of “virtual” diamonds many other vendors subscribe to. We list the available stats, and our weighted system is used to rate quality based on all available info. We do not sell an off-site stone without bringing it in to analyze and inspect it for the customer. That's an important distinction to us.