Re cutting a diamond

[JoelJewel]

Hey everyone! Newbie here.

I had a question, lets say i'd have a 100ct diamond, could this be cut in to lets say 10x10ct diamonds? If so, how is the best way to approach this?

Thanks in advance

 

[lovedogs]

No, definitely not. From what I know, lots of ct weight lost in cutting nice stones. Obviously I'm not a stone cutter, so I don't know details. But maybe @Wink or @Texas Leaguer can speak to the average yrild of a rough stone.

 

[Bron357]

If you had a 100 carat diamond, the last thing you would do would be “cut it up”! Why turn millions of dollars into hundreds of thousands?

 

[whitewave]

@Paul-Antwerp might answer in theory

 

[Dancing Fire]

Show me the 100ct rough!

 

[Paul-Antwerp]

Hi Joel,

I love such purely theoretical questions. They force me to think outside of the box, and in the end, the answer can still be enlightening in the practical world.

So, let us assume you having a 100 ct diamond. Rough or polished, even shape, it does not matter. After all, also all polished diamonds can be considered as rough, as there always is room to improve them.

For some reason, you wish to divide them into 10 pieces of equal weight. This could be for instance a very expensive art project? Is that technically possible? Yes. There would be a little weight loss in the laser separating the pieces, but that is it.

However, the remaining pieces will have very weird shapes. And value wise, we need to consider each remaining stone again as a rough diamond and its value is based upon the most valuable polished diamond can come out. Value wise, this is an utter nightmare.

Then again, as an art project, demonstrating the ease of destructing natural value, it might become an enormous success.

Live long,

 

[JoelJewel]

Hey, very surprised with all the answers! Thanks for everyone's input, already greatly in love with this forum

So the thing is, i know someone who is in posession of a 110ct diamond, he'd like to sell it but finding correct clients for a diamond of this size is a very hard task. That's when he thought of cutting it up in to more smaller pieces.

If anyone could help a brother out it'd be greatly appreciated

 

[EncikG]

@Paul-Antwerp I know this deviates slightly from the initial qs. But if we scaled it down to a 10ct rough, in the real world, how many potential stones could u cut out of it.
Would it always be to aim for the largest best stone to be cut first then whatever smaller stones you can squeeze out?

 

[EncikG]

So the thing is, i know someone who is in posession of a 110ct diamond, he'd like to sell it but finding correct clients for a diamond of this size is a very hard task. That's when he thought of cutting it up in to more smaller pieces.

Such a big diamond is probably a rarity, would he have better luck with an auction house as opposed to cutting it up?

 

[JoelJewel]

Such a big diamond is probably a rarity, would he have better luck with an auction house as opposed to cutting it up?

Not possible in this case sadly enough.

 

[fenestrate]

I hope this is ethically sourced conflict free rough? Can you elucidate on the origin and age of this rough?

Why can it not be sold through an auction house?

 

[tyty333]

If it doesnt have the correct documentation at 110 carats it wont have the correct documentation at 10 - 10 carat pieces. Obvious more to
the story.

Maybe an expert can chime in when the Kimberly process is verified? At the cutting stage? At the selling stage? Any other time?

 

[JoelJewel]

All ideas/tips etc are welcome

 

[JoelJewel]

Small update;

It's not a rough diamond, it's a cut 110ct piece.

 

[OoohShiny]

Small update;

It's not a rough diamond, it's a cut 110ct piece.

A 110ct cut diamond would be a globally significant piece, the sort of thing that Graff or Royalty would own.

Cutting it up would be insanity.

A piece of this size needs complete documentation and evidence of its provenance if its best value is to be realised.

Pictures are needed

 

[Texas Leaguer]

Small update;

It's not a rough diamond, it's a cut 110ct piece.

A gem diamond of that size will have been to the lab. Do you know the color and clarity? If it is bort (industrial grade) it might have some value in the mineral collector market, especially if it has a pleasing shape, but is not cuttable.

 

[Texas Leaguer]

@Paul-Antwerp I know this deviates slightly from the initial qs. But if we scaled it down to a 10ct rough, in the real world, how many potential stones could u cut out of it.
Would it always be to aim for the largest best stone to be cut first then whatever smaller stones you can squeeze out?

Not necessarily. In planning you would be evaluating the total VALUE that could be extracted from the rough. That often involves a very complicated calculus that takes into account color, clarity, size, shape, current market prices, and even cut quality. The larger the rough the more complicated this math tends to be and the greater the stakes for getting it right and optimizing yield value.

Fortunately, today there are some sophisticated tools, like the software Octonus has developed (pictured below), that help a manufacture accurately plan their approach.

 

[JoelJewel]

For the ones interested, not sure if you can send pm's here but if it it possible, just send me a pm if you could be of helping hand. Will send a video to the ones as well.

 

[whitewave]

No PMs here. The bottom line is, if it’s gem quality, he won’t be able to sell it above board unless it has a Kimberley certificate. If no certificate, well... we probably shouldn’t be discussing it.

 

[Texas Leaguer]

For the ones interested, not sure if you can send pm's here but if it it possible, just send me a pm if you could be of helping hand. Will send a video to the ones as well.

No pm's allowed on this forum, but you can post the video here. We'd all be interested in seeing it.

 

[lovedogs]

This seems....odd. if he has something this rare and valuable, he would have no problem selling it. Unless something shady is going on (Kimberly, etc), selling it isn't an issue.

 

[JoelJewel]

Where would one sell something like this then? He's a noob concerning the diamond trade, so am i.

 

[JPie]

Forgive my paranoid nature, but “a friend of mine has a 100ct diamond he needs help selling, and let me PM you the details I cannot share here” kinda screams “SCAM” to me.

 

[Golden_bird]

Where would one sell something like this then? He's a noob concerning the diamond trade, so am i.

We need a picture no advice before we see that sparkly bomb :roll

 

[denverappraiser]

All ideas/tips etc are welcome

Run away! Diamonds of this nature are discovered at a rate of a couple per decade. There are fewer than 50 of them total. They aren't just lying around on the side of the road, and 100% of them are known. That tells me your 'friend' is, to put it politely, confused. He/she needs professional advice.

 

[OoohShiny]

Where would one sell something like this then? He's a noob concerning the diamond trade, so am i.

A worldwide-renowned auction house would provide the widest audience and largest sales price, such as Sothebys.

 

[AV_]

With all the blunt questions, we'll never see it ,(

- David Warren will.

 

[Paul-Antwerp]

Just for the fun of it, let's continue with the possibility of this being somewhat legit.

So, there is apparently an unknown polished diamond of over 100 Ct., available for sale. For some reason, auctioning it publicly is not possible. Also, more info on shape, color, clarity, cut-quality are not given, also a secret?

The person holding the stone (not sure if he/she is the owner) considers the theory of cutting the diamond up in much smaller diamonds, as these are easier to sell. Easier to sell, for sure, but the theoretical destruction of value is huge. It gives the impression that the person holding it does not really care about how much the diamond cost him. Possibly, it has no cost for him, he may have inherited it, and he prefers dollars in the hand and not a diamond on the hand?

I see Kimberley Process raised. It is a factor today. But if there is some proof that the mining of this diamond pre-dates the establishment of the Kimberley Process, this diamond cannot have Kimberley-compliant tracking. With proof of older origin, it is Kimberley-compliant by nature, and the Kimberley-agency in the country of the owner will validate this.

However, the sheer absolute rarity of such diamond raises other questions. Like Neil said, there are very few such diamonds, and they are mostly known. Not always known however is who owns or holds them. For sure, in the past century, there have been governments in the world, where key-people held certain values in diamonds. Governments by nature do not last forever, diamonds (as is said) however do. Whomever today holds such diamond may well not want to sell this publicly through an auction-house. Possibly even, cutting it up in far less valuable pieces may even be an option. The problem however lies in the buyer of such weird origin being guilty of money-laundering in most jurisdictions.

And while we are spitting out theories, it does not have to be some ill-fated government. The owner can also be a terrorist-organization. Or a drug-cartel, stupidly having put their money into a 100 Ct-diamond, and not in 10,000 diamonds of 1Ct.

But it could also be more prosaic. It may have been a gift to a wife, or even mistress. And before ending the relationship, she prefers money in the hand over a diamond on the hand. Selling it very publicly may not be the best solution then.

All in all, this smells big time. And the only thing we ordinary folks can learn here: When you purchase a diamond, buy it from a legitimate source, preferably with a good buyback-policy. You will not have to consider cutting it into pieces, because nobody wishes to purchase your big honker.

Live long,

 

[Gussie]

I've got some Ocean Front Property in Arizona. Who's interested?

 

[bludiva]

Lol @ ceg

it's an interesting hypothetical tho...the cullinan diamond was cut into a bunch of smaller pueces, maybe an expert can weigh in on why thay decision was made...