ERD H&A stones

[noskoneb]

Hi all,

I noticed that on ERD''s website, you can search for H&A stones.

Are all the stones in that category true/high quality H&A stones? Can I purchase one and be assured that I am getting a top notch H&A stone?

Who exactly classifies these as H&As - is it ERD? Do you know if they provide images to prove the H&As?

Has anyone purchased H&As from ERD before?

Thanks

 

[ChunkyCushionLover]

Date: 3/22/2010 9:29:58 AM
Author:noskoneb
Hi all,

I noticed that on ERD's website, you can search for H&A stones.

Are all the stones in that category true/high quality H&A stones? Can I purchase one and be assured that I am getting a top notch H&A stone?

Who exactly classifies these as H&As - is it ERD? Do you know if they provide images to prove the H&As?

Has anyone purchased H&As from ERD before?

Thanks

All good questions I'd ask the vendor if he will provide Hearts and Arrows images and an Idealscope image. If they won't provide the images it is highly unlikely the stones satisfy the stringent cut precision of an ideal hearts and arrows diamond.
Most vendors who sell true ideal hearts and arrows diamonds are selling them at a premium to other round brilliants and provide the images to justify this premium.
Any vendor can call their round brilliants hearts and arrows, as all round diamonds contain roughly this pattern when viewed through a h&A viewer but that does not mean they are all cut with this level of precision.

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 3/22/2010 9:29:58 AM
Author:noskoneb
Hi all,

I noticed that on ERD's website, you can search for H&A stones.

Are all the stones in that category true/high quality H&A stones? Can I purchase one and be assured that I am getting a top notch H&A stone?

Who exactly classifies these as H&As - is it ERD? Do you know if they provide images to prove the H&As?

Has anyone purchased H&As from ERD before?

Thanks

Images of both hearts and arrows are essential in order to evaluate the precision of the cut responsible for h&a patterning and also Idealscope images so ask Mark or whoever you deal with to provide these. Without images, personally = no h&a to me.

 

[noskoneb]

I agree that a buyer should ideally independently verify the seller's claim by viewing images of the H&As.

However, I am curious as to how ERD determines that stones in their H&A collection are truly H&As - do they view each stone themselves under a H&A viewer and make that assessment themselves or do they rely on whoever sells/supplies them w/ the stone?

There aren't many online sellers who let customers specifically search for H&A stones to my knowledge, and if a seller is advertising a stone as such, it had better be fact.

That's why I'm wondering if any PSers have any knowledge about this particular topic and have asked these questions before and/or purchased a H&A stone from ERD.

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 3/22/2010 10:50:43 AM
Author: noskoneb
I agree that a buyer should ideally independently verify the seller's claim by viewing images of the H&As.

However, I am curious as to how ERD determines that stones in their H&A collection are truly H&As - do they view each stone themselves under a H&A viewer and make that assessment themselves or do they rely on whoever sells/supplies them w/ the stone?

There aren't many online sellers who let customers specifically search for H&A stones to my knowledge, and if a seller is advertising a stone as such, it had better be fact.

That's why I'm wondering if any PSers have any knowledge about this particular topic and have asked these questions before and/or purchased a H&A stone from ERD.

I don't recall many h&a from ERD that have been seen here, it would be best to ask them what criteria they use to determine which diamonds get their particular h&a title, I would be interested to learn more myself. Concerning patterning, some stones which have good light return might not have great optical symmetry which is responsible for the h&a patterning and as such you don't see a semblance of hearts and arrows, but rather a mish mash of broken and erratic arrows here and there which show no precision whatsoever. Same with the hearts.

Then you can get stones with good but not perfect optical symmetry which can show a reasonable to a fairly crisp and distinct h&a pattern, to those that show pattern precision which is what is known as ' near h&a.' Especially with these it is essential to have images in order to split the near h&a to those with the pattern precision as expected by experts and enthusiasts of this cutting style.