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Richard von Sternberg to Address GIA - Carlsbad

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Superidealist

Brilliant_Rock
Joined
Sep 10, 2003
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655
August 25th, tickets available through Ticketmaster. (link)
 

WinkHPD

Ideal_Rock
Trade
Joined
May 3, 2001
Messages
7,516
If only! Having been an EightStar dealer for several years now I have heard most of it before and always enjoy both speaking with and listening to Richard speak to my clients when I call with them for questions.

What I have learned from Richard has greatly altered how I looked at diamonds for the last thirty years. I was selling ideal cut diamonds back in the seventies, when it was hard to get anyone to pay the premium and there were only a few major dealers who dealt in them, Kiger, Keppie and Lazar Kaplan. Keppie has since swallowed up Kiger, and Lazar Kaplan is well known to many both in and out of the trade. Today it is hard for me to sell "only" an ideal as there are better choices that were not available then.

Now there are literally hundreds of cutters doing Hearts and Arrows quality "Super Ideals" which were invented about four years after the EightStar. Even amongst them there are "better and lesser" stones. Yet side by side with a non ideal cut the differences can be both easy and hard to see, depending on the skill of the cutter. (Oops, am I admitting that some non ideal cut stones are incredibly beautiful? Oh my, I shall probably be flogged!)

Whether you love Richard or hate him, you must give him credit for helping to bring the cutting revolution to the United States and for getting the major labs to take a serious look at performance based cutting grades. Both AGS and GIA will soon have them, and not a day too soon in my opinion as they will serve the public much better than today's confusing hodge podge of numbers and angles. I have been in this business for nearly 35 years and I still find the numbers to be confusing UNTIL I LOOK AT A STONE WITH MY EYES!

Are there some great looking non ideal cut diamonds? Heck yes! But for consistent beauty, get an EightStar, every one looks just like the other, except for size and color. If you want a stone that is less expensive but also very beautiful, and want to feel secure in knowing that you are getting a great looking stone, go for one of the Hearts and Arrows cut stones, and you can read here to see which of the brands have a reputation for consistency, such as Venus, Superbcert, A Cut Above and the hand picked stones from Todd at Nice Ice or Jonathon. (I will now be whipped by those I have thoughtlessly forgotten to put on this list, sorry, this is just a sample of the good guys here, not intended to be a definitive list.)

But I digress, I wish I was going to be there and that it was so simple to get tickets, but hey, maybe it is. Who will be allowed to attend? Will it be only current students, or will the "public" be invited?

Wink
 

niceice

Brilliant_Rock
Joined
Jan 29, 2003
Messages
1,792
And you know that we would happily pay for those tickets! We had a wonderful time chatting with Richard Saturday in Las Vegas at the JCK Show and ran into an old friend from PS in his booth which was a pleasant surprise - not mentioning any names, don't know whether that is public knowledge yet, but we were quite pleased to get a chance to personally meet a person who we have crossed virtual paths with many a time.

Richard is truly a resource for the diamond cutting community and always a pleasure to meet with not only because of his unbelievable understanding of how to cut a diamond, but also because of his subtle but witty pesonality
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Hey, is it just us, or does Wink seem to have a desire to be publicly flogged today? Hmmm, Winky Boy, seems to us that you're a bit obsessed with that concept at the moment... If we bump into Leonid in the aisles at JCK we'll see if we can convince him to add a live video feed to PS and then maybe we can hire a few Vegas girls to scratch this itch for ya' LIVE here on PS for all to see. Wouldn't that be a sight? And just to ensure that we send Wink right over the edge, we're going to have them dress up in black kayaking attire and the handle of the whip can be cut out of a paddle
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Robin's got the boots! Okay, she's got the clothes too... It's not that we're into that scene, she just likes the clothes... Wears them to the show from time to time too, that always illicits and interesting and rather "stupid looking guy" type of response from the cutters. It's good for our annual discount. Too bad we're not going to be able to see how this thread develops until later because we're going to be caught up in meetings all day at the JCK Show in Las Vegas, but those who know us personally can confirm. Robin wore a leapard print pantsuit yesterday along with her gold fingernails and had diamonds dripping from every finger, one of our cutters (who has known us forever) looks at her, kind of flips his wrist and fingers up and down a little and says "you're always so... subtle."
 

scotch

Rough_Rock
Joined
Oct 15, 2002
Messages
94
Pictures, please. Pictures!!

Scotch
 

WinkHPD

Ideal_Rock
Trade
Joined
May 3, 2001
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7,516
With that costume you might not even have to chase me very hard to take my flogging!

LOL what a mental image!

Wink
 
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