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- May 11, 2012
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Meet Lola the cushion shaped 5.34 L VS2 carat chunky cut OEC.
Since the cat is out of the bag on this one with Phoenix's post I thought I would put some pics in Antique jewellery to begin with and post more in the Show me the Bling when she is set. Apologies to Armywife who I know has a Lola as well. This name was taken from the promo advertised on TV of Marvel Agents of Shield. The guy looks down at his Vintage car and says "no one messes with Lola." Over the past few months I have come to the same sentiment with this diamond...She came out of a pin. An estate sale here in Australia. The pin was made by Hardy Bros, which is an Australian jeweller with prices and marketing in line with Tiffany's. She is an early OEC, almost bordering on a transitional between an Antique cushion/Old Mine cut and an OEC. I started calling her an Ooshen in fact (OEC crossed cushion). The stone is cushion shaped, and has big chunky cut outer facets with a near perfect OEC fat petal pattern in the centre.
She is 11.06 - 11.41 (so 11.235) mms. 61% Depth, 49% table. Classified a "tinted white" L with VS2 clarity.
I have not posted pics of her for months because I had this internal debate with myself on what to do with the stone. She has chips in what is a thin and crispy girdle and one day I would dearly like to give her a repolish. I explored these options and found out the only way to ship a stone this size and value from Australia to the US was via Brinks or Malca Almit, both of which are expensive options. I explored getting the girdle redone here in Australia, I fast came to the conclusion she would come back a vastly different shape and cutters here have very limited to no experience with Old stones.
I rang Adam, at OWD he got it immediately. I was about to ship the stone to him for a repolish and better girdle and then to Victor for a new setting and then the drama with the pear. My husband flipped out. And in that time I have to admit I somehow grew fond of the old gal as she is, she could be lost, she could explode at the cutters wheel, 5+ carats of chunky goodness gone in the blink of an eye, so I made the call to leave her be for the time being, set her and just enjoy..... I might take her to the US one day for a better girdle, who knows.
This made the type of setting I put her into limited. I am in the process of getting one made (fingers crossed) so I will keep you posted. The original pin has a 10 prong peg head, 18K white gold. It has a lovely aged colour and patina it makes the colour of the stone disappear. I did think about cutting the head off and putting a shank on it, but decided to keep it as it's part of the history of the piece.
To begin with all of my pics made her look terrible. I showed some to SB. She looked like a badly cut stone in every one that I took. I went and looked at hundreds of old cuts all much smaller before I bought her. I trusted my eyes and my gut. I gave up for a while, discouraged, my pics still had this random and bad looking facet pattern in pretty well every one. That is not what my eyes were seeing. It wasn't what she looks like in person at all. Sometimes pics don't tell the full story.
SB told me not to worry. That the more irregularly shaped the stone the more difficult it was to take a decent pic, in this case at least. I gave up with the old camera and tried with the Iphone. These were marginally better. Then I held up my loupe to the Iphone camera hole and hey presto finally a closer shot to what I actually saw. I will put the disclaimer I still have not managed to get a pic that captures the true beauty of this stone, but here is the sneak peak anyway;
The original pin and vendor pics, they didn't clean the stone first she was coated in oil, grease and dirt when she arrived;
A real life perspective, you can see how bad I make the cut look she is picking up the blue from the sky;
An early pic, still no luck with the facet pattern
Even some of the later pics made the faceting look like a random mess, then I got a bit better at taking pics. I am wearing a fuzzy track top or sweater top and dark blue track pants in the next three pics, that is what is being picked up and reflected in the stone....
And then finally with the loupe & Iphone, I discovered I could get a pic close to what my eye actually sees. The pink is the long sleeved sweat top I have on and the blue which you can actually see my leg at the 8.00 o'clock position is being picked up and reflected around the stone. The dark brown to almost black next to my leg is the leg of a table also being reflected around the stone. Pic taken inside my house. Apologies for the white fuzz, I wiped the stone down with paper towel thinking that would clean it and you can see it stuck to the diamond making it as dirty if not more dirty than when I started.
The stone is a chameleon, it picks up and reflects whatever is in its surroundings.
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