Hi tuer. Hearts and arrows is an emerging trend, and the market hasn't quite nailed down the standards yet.
Not all Hearts and Arrows are Ideal cuts (you can cut a CZ for the H&A image). Not all Ideal cuts are hearts and arrows, either. If you laser-incribe H&A on the girdle and send the stone to the GIA for grading, GIA will put "H&A" in the comments section of the cert. One might think that the GIA put the inscription on and is "certifying" the fact that it is an H&A, which they are NOT. Yikes.
Now bear with us as the obfuscation is just getting started!
There is no Hearts and Arrows grade given by the major labs. This gives rise to all sorts of interpretations about what constitutes an H&A stone. Some vendors require a certain distinct pattern, others require any old thing that might resemble a heart or arrow. Really anal
people break the hearts and arrows down into A, B, and C grades. While one vendor claims that they sell stones with only the most perfectly formed H&A images, other vendors say that the best they're finding on the market today get just a "B" grade.
There also is no consensus on what exactly an Ideal cut is. AGS uses "Ideal" on their certs but GIA does not. The AGA Ideal is different than the AGS Ideal. Many say the AGS Ideal is waaay to broad and many AGS 0 stones are not so ideal at all. Then there is the guy in the mall who will tell you that a 60/60 stone is ideal. EightStar's version of Ideal centers around the image returned in their FireScope while other cutters cut for the highest scores on the BrillianceScope. All red, pink, and black through the "
Ideal Scope" is pretty darn good, as is an HCA score of under 2. Other still suggest the ideal thing to do is use certain combinations of the pavillion and crown angles. Then there's the Brilliant Ideal Cut, Firely Ideal Cuts and Tolkowsky ideal proportions.
Pricescope has a great tutorial about all this cut stuff. Enjoy!