‘Hearts and Arrows’ is an attribute that does not have accepted standards, rather like rating a car as a ‘creampuff’. TrueHearts™, on the other hand DOES have a standard. Anything that James Allen wants to include in the line is eligible and nothing else is. To the extent that this is useful or not is purely a function of how much you value JA’s in-house grading process both in terms of taking the image and how they evaluate it. It’s not clear to me how they make this determination and as far as I know they haven’t made public the rules or the methodology so you’re your left with the notion that it IS a TrueHearts™ simply because JA, as the trademark holder, says it is so. Whether or not this is useful information and whether or not the stone is therefore a creampuff is up for you to decide. This same rule applies to any branding attributes on a stone. What makes a stone an ACA is when Whiteflash says it is; What makes a stone a Blue Nile Signature is when Blue Nile says it is, etc.
I would hope that all PS dealers would use Brian's terms http://journal.pricescope.com/Articles/65/1/Hearts-and-Arrows-Diamonds-and-The-Basics-of-Diamond-Cutting.aspx now maybe the cleft part and whether its 8% or not would be somewhat relaxed especially in diamonds with longer LGFs but otherwise you would expect everyone's criteria to be similar to his.
Sara, that this is true is I think, an old story.
Much more skill and time is needed to get the perfect hearts than to get perfect arrows or to get the pavillion and crown angles to be complimentary. If a cutter is willing to take the time(and rough loss) to get perfect optical symmetry they are also highly likely to take the time to produce a near tolk ideal as well. On Pricescope we love to point out the exception the rare case where this is possible even if only theoretical. If a vendor is providing an ideal hearts and arrows image(by Brian''s criteria) it is more than likely they rest of the proportions are near ideal as well.
The problem which I think you are highlighting is the case where:
Date: 3/9/2010 12:58:17 PM
Author: sarap333
Great points, CCL. I won''t quote the whole post -- these things get way too long that way.
But, I will say, that as the public slowly, oh, so slowly, becomes educated on cut quality, the potential by vendors for ''H&A abuse''is there. We live in a bubble on PS and hold the vendors'' feet to the fire.
Not so in the ''real world.'' A locally-owned store in my small city is running advertisements that they ''carry only well-cut diamonds, because cut is key to beauty.'' I''ll be interested to see what that means when I pay them a visit later this week.
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