what are surface naturals and do they affect the diamond?

[ringbling17]

hi,
I was thinking of puchasing a diamond and the GIA report states it is D VS1 cut cornered modified square brilliant. It states that there are naturals on the pavillion side and I was just wondering what that meant and would they affect the quality of the stone? There are four of them all together. I figure it can''t be that bad if GIA would rate the stone VS1, right?
Someone please clarify this for me! Thanks in advance.

 

[optimized]

Hi Kayla,

Naturals are inclusions in a diamond that are basically just unpolished areas of the original diamond rough left by the cutter during the finishing of the stone. Some naturals extend below the girdle's surface (indented naturals). Naturals are typically the result of a cutter trying to maximize the weight of a cut diamond by removing as little excess material as possible, leaving a bit of the rough intact. If the diamond you're speaking of has naturals more or less evenly spaced around the girdle, what they describe is the outline of the original octahedral crystal that the diamond was cut from, which is kind of an interesting trait.

In and of themselves naturals aren't especially noteworthy (or bad), but are indicative of an effort by the cutter to maximize yield (weight) over finish, so you might want to make sure that the cutter didn't use other, less desirable tactics to increase the yield of the stone (poor angles, very thick girdles, etc.) before considering purchasing such a diamond.

-Tim

 

[Rhino]

Tim is right on.

I would also add that naturals can be on an IF diamond so long as they are confined to the girdle itself.

Naturals appear in 2 common forms on diamonds. They either appear as a series of parrallel lines or they can appear with tiny triangles within other triangles (called trigons). How far they extend down the pavilion can determine the clarity grade as well.

Here is an example of a VS1 graded diamond because of the natural.

... eek ... for some reason I can't log onto my website.? Anyhow if you'd like to see what it looks like once the site is back up (perhaps there's a prob with my server) there is a .75ct Regent cut E VS1 (I believe that's the one) and it has a natural on under the girdle on the pavilion.

I also believe that if you go into my chapters on clarity, the very last button says "Gallery of Inclusions" and I think I have there a picture of a natural showing the trigons.

Once my site is up I'll send the links. They are neat to see.

Peace,
Rhino