Comparing availability of FCD shapes

[kenny]

I did a check at my FCD vendor.
Sure, this is only one vendor, but the order of the shapes probably would not vary much vendor to vendor.
They currently have 788 FCDs in stock.
Using their Advacned Search function I selected for each cut.

I was surprised there were so many rounds since that is not one of the shapes that amps up the color as much as some shapes lower on the list.
I suspect it's just because round is such a popular shape.
I was also surprised pear was #1.
I thought it would be 4 or 5.
I was also surprised how many hearts there are.

Here are the FCD shapes (listed in descending quantity) that are currently for sale.

165 Pears
159 Radiants
109 Cushions
99 Rounds
95 Oval
53 Emerald (If you check, some of these are actually asschers)
48 Heart
32 Marquise
19 Princess
4 Trilliant
3 Triangle
1 Asscher (See Emerald cut above)
1 Shield
0 Octagon

 

[chrono]

Any other FCD vendors that can be surveyed? What we have here is a sampling from one vendor which does not necessarily tell the big picture. It only tells the results of Leibish.

 

[kenny]

I pointed out it was only one vendor.
I didn't state it was market-wide.
This data only took a few minutes to compile since their website design made it easy.
Still I think it an interesting, informative and surprising list, and note that while all regulars know where I shop I did made a point of not mentioning the vendor's name.

Anyone with the time and inclination is welcome to search all vendors, but with some you can't search by shape so you must count them one by one and compile the numbers.
Like I said, I doubt the order of the shapes would vary much except when the numbers are close, like with radiant vs pear, or round vs Oval.
Plus, all vendors share the profit motive to select inventory they think they can turn over ASAP.
But I'd love it if someone had the time to compile data for all FCD vendors.

 

[davi_el_mejor]

DBL:

Radiant: 64
Cushion: 48
Round: 17
Pear: 14
Princess: 10
Marquise: 7
Heart: 5
Emerald: 4
Asscher: 4
Oval: 3
Trill: 1

That was just going through each shape in their loose diamond search excluding d-z diamonds as of 1438 Eastern time 23SEP12

 

[kenny]

Thanks Davi.

 

[chrono]

My thanks to Davi as well. With two vendors' inventories listed, I can see that the top shapes differ. DBL carries more radiants which I thought would be the most common shape. I wonder if there is a relationship between colour and shape? For example, I see many yellow radiants but not too many pink radiants.

 

[kenny]

Unfortunately Langerman lumps some shapes together so the data is less useful.

270 rounds
242 Square (I assume asschers and radiants are in here)
218 Oval/Cushion
176 Pear
128 Rectangle (I assume emerald and radiants are in here)
89 Marquise
88 Heart

 

[kenny]

Serendiamonds site forces you to search on shape and color together.
With 13 shapes and 12 colors that's 156 searches.

No thanks.

 

[kenny]

Ishay Ben-David
www.fancycolordiamond.net

84 Radiant
73 Round
36 Cushion
23 Pear
21 Oval
17 Emerald
15 Heart
3 Marquise
2 Princess

 

[kenny]

peleddiamonds

Their search engine is all screwed up.
You'd have to count them one by one.

 

[kenny]

Rachminov Diamonds 1891 www.fancycolor.com

62 Cushion
58 Radiant
29 Round
25 Pear
17 Oval
11 Heart
10 Emerald
6 Marquise
5 Princess

 

[kenny]

rarecoloreddiamonds, colourdiamonds, icestore, and israel-diamonds ...

Can't search by shape.

 

[kenny]

amgad


136 Radiant
48 Pear
34 Emerald
34 Round
20 Oval
18 Heart
19 Princess
7 Marquise

 

[kenny]

So, my assumption was wrong.
The mix of shape quantities varies quite a bit vendor to vendor.

For the record I'm only counting loose stones.

 

[minousbijoux]

But all your good research shows quite definitively what the top four shapes are, and I wouldn't think that pears would be one of them. Go figure - I guess its just a way to extend the rough.

 

[wordie89]

Thanks for the information, all! For the record I'll take any shape fcds anyone cares to press upon me

 

[LD]

Isn't this just common sense though? The most popular shapes are the ones that are consistently coming top ie round, cushion, pear, oval etc. Correct me if I'm wrong but don't these give a large face appearance even if cut shallow (and with multiple facets can hide a multitude of sins) rather than a princess cut for example?

Marquise and trilliant cuts are not generally favoured (and neither are hearts but I wonder if some hearts are made by a slip of the cutting of a pear! lol).

I bet if you looked at coloured stones in general you'd find nearly all vendors had less marquise, trilliant and princess cuts.

 

[justginger]

Interesting comparison, as I've been poking around a bit and without actually doing the legwork noticed that Leibish is pear heavy ATM. I'm not sure it's always like that though; I don't remember thinking that during my past searches. The Argyle stones especially are pear and emerald-saturated now. It used to be difficult to find an Argyle emerald cut stone (that I remember).

 

[Rockdiamond]

Yes thanks Davi, and Kenny for doing legwork!!
I wrote about this topic on the another thread in RT earlier- basically- what I am saying is that we need to consider color as well.
Princess cut diamonds are more rare in yellow, for example, as compared to cushion or radiant.....
Take brown diamonds, also considered to be fancy colored- yet a lot more princess cuts exist by comparison to the proportion of yellow. If we check the ratio of pink princess cuts compared to radiant/cushion, it will also be different than yellow.
Why is this?
It has a lot to do with the nature of different colors in diamonds, and how they manifest themselves. The way a brown diamond looks brown, with regards to cutting- is totally different than why a yellow diamond looks yellow, in a majority of cases.
Then we have the massive inequities in value.
It makes no sense to make the same type of decisions cutting a $20,000 piece of yellow rough- which might be a $5000 piece of brown rough, or a $200,000 piece of pink rough if they were all the same size. Each color requires different techniques, and yield considerations vary.
There's a HUGE difference in cut quality from one stone to the next.
Although cut is less of a consumer factor in fancy colored diamonds than in white- there's actually far more possibilities with fancy colored fancy shaped rough.So in that regard, a cutter's skill means everything.

.....

 

[chrono]

Marquise and trilliant cuts are not generally favoured (and neither are hearts but I wonder if some hearts are made by a slip of the cutting of a pear! lol).

I thought the same thing too, LD. Cut, cut, cut.....oops....oh well, it's now a heart instead of a pear.

Princess stones just don't pool colour the same way, I think, just like we see the pointy end of a pear collecting more colour at the tips, I think we'll see the same in princess cut gemstones. The same is likely to be true of marquise and trillions too. Of course, rarely would the natural shape of the rough be conductive to cutting a marquise and trillion.

 

[kee07]

I like asscher