How rare is an ideal cut, h&a diamond really?

[cambo]

Sorry if this has already been discussed, but I just did a quick search through the forum and didn''t really find what I was looking for.

Does anyone know, of all the rough mined in a given year, what percentage of those are cut into jewelry quality diamonds? What percentage of those jewelry quality diamonds are ideal cut? What percentage of those ideal cut diamonds actually exhibit hearts and arrows?

Thanks for indulging my curiosity!

 

[valeria101]

You may want to look down Garry's (Cut Nut) posts for an asnwer to this...

As far as I remember, only he ventured to give an estimate around here, and no formal statistics exist. I would think the latest ballpak came between 5% and 10%(of round diamonds, not exactly what you are asking) and growing due to demand.


Any round can be recut into a H&A with more or less loss of weight. So rarity here just depends on how many H&A are wanted not on how many could be made in the first place, IMO.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

The proportion of diamonds with nice proportions is rising. This is from my anecdotal experiance.

I do not define H&A's as exclusively ideal - you obviously do - I think that is both too restrictive (ie there are diamonds that do not show H&A's that are just as symmetrical and meet my expectations of ideal) and that not all H&A's are ideal.




but to answer that question - yes the # of H&A's is growing fast as more and more manufacturers put in better quality polishing equipment.




Quantifying this is hard - it depends on your standard for H&A's - if I took a medium position between BG and many NY dealers - I would say it may have gone from 5%.

BTW there are H&A's on the market that have not been deliberately marketed that way.




But ask me next week and the #'s would change - it is just a gut feel thing.

 

[Paul-Antwerp]

To start, 80% of mined diamonds are for industrial use.

Of the remaining 20%, maybe 70% will become round brilliant shapes.

Of this 14%, 70% is rather low in colour, and/or brownish and/or low clarity. In these goods, there is no premium for a nice make, so they will always be cut for weight. Granted, the average quality gets better, but they remain cut for weight. Forget about those.

Of the remaining 4.2%, at least 50% can stay above a magic weight if they are cut to looser standards. This makes them more valuable.

Of the remaining 2.1%, 80% falls in the hands of cutters who have no market for better cuts, thus do not attach any value to it.

So, to look at it in a very positive way, you probably have something like 0.42% left.

Live long,

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

For a nice person Paul, you can be a hard man (ROFL)

bTW Leonid - we need an image of someone rolling on the floor laughing

 

[cambo]

Thanks Paul. This is along the lines of the information I was looking for. So assuming a sample of 10,000 rough diamonds, one can assume that only 42 will become ideally cut round brilliants. Very interesting!

 

[Stavanger]

Of these 42, how many wold be close to perfect D/IF''s over 1.5ct?

 

[Rhino]

Thanks for that insight Paul. It really gives a handle on how rare the best goods really are.

 

[Hest88]

I love how Paul comes up with these cool statistics!

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

It ain''t that bad - about 2/3rds the diamonds would have 2 or more diamonds cut from the rough (sawables). so there might be 63

Do a search and see how many D IF there are listed - then search for the rest.

Then divide by 10 for the 90% of diamonds that do not get certified

 

[valeria101]

Date: 11/7/2004 3:559 PM
Author: Paul-Antwerp

Of the remaining 2.1%, 80% falls in the hands of cutters who have no market for better cuts, thus do not attach any value to it.

Meaning (???), half of the ideals out there come with no proper presentation and no value (premium) attached - only if one knew where and how to look for them ?

Somehow, this does not sound like particularly bad news

 

[Paul-Antwerp]

Date: 11/11/2004 10

1:36 AM
Author: valeria101

Date: 11/7/2004 3:559 PM
Author: Paul-Antwerp

Of the remaining 2.1%, 80% falls in the hands of cutters who have no market for better cuts, thus do not attach any value to it.

Meaning (???), half of the ideals out there come with no proper presentation and no value (premium) attached - only if one knew where and how to look for them ?

Somehow, this does not sound like particularly bad news

No, Valeria,

It is more like 80% of men attach no value in giving their wife an occasional present. Just figure, how many of these women will ever get a present by accident.

Live long,

 

[JC]

Thanks for the education Paul. That was a very clear breakdown.

 

[strmrdr]

Date: 11/8/2004 1:57:20 PM
Author: Binge
Of these 42, how many wold be close to perfect D/IF''s over 1.5ct?

0 they are almost always cut for weight except on special order where someone is willing to pay for the lost weight.

 

[JohnQuixote]

Date: 11/8/2004 2

6:30 PM
Author: Rhino
Thanks for that insight Paul. It really gives a handle on how rare the best goods really are.

Agreed, Rhino. Very engaging information. Paul - thanks for sharing.