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| Diamond Tutorial | Hearts and Arrows Diamonds | |
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In Japan in the 80's someone noticed a hearts pattern through a Firescope™ when they looked at the back of a diamond. A special Hearts & Arrow's viewer was designed, and diamonds with H&A's patterns became very popular there. In the mid 90's the trend arrived in USA.
From the top, a diamond shows an arrows pattern, turn the stone over, and look down on the pavilion and you should see 8 hearts with small 'V' shapes. A true H&A's must have all patterns visible at a single glance; this indicates the diamond has optically perfect symmetrical. When buying H&A’s online it is a good idea to see an actual photo of the stone as there are no grading standards for H&A's. Some wholesale dealers version of H&A's can be rather chaotic. A H&A’s viewer does not show light leakage and an Ideal-Scope will not show heart patterns. The device is a simple but effective symmetry tool. But many beautiful diamonds have poor symmetry. There is no link between symmetry and ideal proportions. Some brands of H&A's have become very popular in America; most are genuinely better performers, and the cute patterns are a marketers dream come true; Hearts on Fire have promoted H&A's very effectively. There are also several online brands, one is Brain Gavin's who wrote this detailed article. H&A's shows a diamond has been given a better cut, but not all H&A's have optimum light return. You can use HCA or an Ideal-Scope to confirm that a H&A's diamond will not have leakage just inside the table. Peter Yantzer, the director of the AGS lab, maintains that AGS will not grade the quality of the H&A's pattern because they are not satisfied that H&A's diamonds are more beautiful. GIA's 70,000 observation survey also concluded that diamonds with 'optical symmetry' were not necessarily preferred by its participants in 'blind testing'. Discuss on the Forum |
Hearts pattern viewed at the back of unset stone  Arrows pattern viewed from the top  H&A Viewer Images are courtesy of Whiteflash.com | |
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