What is HCA?

[danielNJ]

Hey all, LOVE this site!.....Getting close to purchasing a stone. Well at least she has narrowed it down to a 2.76ish White Radiant (which I am learning is a tough one), and or a 2.76ish Yellow Radiant. She''s close!!!!!!!!!!! But I keep seeing "HCA" Can someone explain. You guys are amazing! Dan

 

[Skippy123]

Well the HCA can only be used on round brilliant stones and not radiants. You can read about it here http://www.pricescope.com/cutadviser.asp but you plug in the numbers and it is a tool to help a person weed out bad performing round brilliants based on calculations. Welcome to Pricescope! Can't wait to see which stone you choose.

 

[NeverEndingUpgrade]

HCA stands for Holloway Cut Adviser. It is located in the drop down menu when you put your cursor on the Tools tab up top. You can put in the specs for any round you are considering and it will rate the cut. Anything 2 and under is considered ideal.

 

[Lorelei]

As Skip says, you can''t use the HCA on radiants, it is for round diamonds. Basically, the HCA is used to eliminate lesser performing diamonds, so that one can sort the wheat from the chaff so to speak! Diamonds in many cases which score 2 and under are generally considered to be worthy of further evaluation by other methods such as Idealscope/ human eyes etc. There are exceptions to the rule of course, also the HCA should not be used to select stones.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Date: 5/16/2008 11:51:38 PM
Author:danielNJ
Hey all, LOVE this site!.....Getting close to purchasing a stone. Well at least she has narrowed it down to a 2.76ish White Radiant (which I am learning is a tough one), and or a 2.76ish Yellow Radiant. She''s close!!!!!!!!!!! But I keep seeing ''HCA'' Can someone explain. You guys are amazing! Dan

be sure it comes with a GIA color intensity report.

 

[lazybum9]

Date: 5/17/2008 12:04:52 AM
Author: NeverEndingUpgrade
HCA stands for Holloway Cut Adviser. It is located in the drop down menu when you put your cursor on the Tools tab up top. You can put in the specs for any round you are considering and it will rate the cut. Anything 2 and under is considered ideal.

I''ve got this HCA score of 2.1 from the below specs.

Depth 62.21%
Table 54.96%
Crown Angle 33.92%
Pavilion Angle 41.10%
Culet* 0%

Result says Total Visual Performance 2.1 - Very Good - Worth buying if the price is right.

I thought that under 2 is considered good but why highlighted yellow statement from HCA shows good as well? Pls advise.

 

[eander315]

2.1 is Very Good, as opposed to Excellent, which is what it would have said if the score were 2.0 or less.

 

[lazybum9]

Oh...so its the difference between Excellent and Very Good...Thanks.

 

[Lorelei]

Just to clarify, all the HCA is doing is working on a given set of proportions to let you know whether the diamond is worth considering for further evaluation for possible purchase or not. Don't go so much by any opinions it may give such as Very Good or Excellent as being an accurate judgement of any diamond. The HCA can't see the stone, and it cannot predict the personality, or individual performance of a diamond.

Basically scores of 2 and under are considered to be worthy of further evaluation in many cases ( also don't go by the lower the HCA score, the better the diamond, it doesn't work that way.) Also with some of the superideal diamonds offered by some of the online vendors, sometimes the HCA doesn't score them that well due to various factors such as a slightly steeper pavilion angle for example, despite them being fabulous in house stones with proven optical performance. So use as a guide only to sort out which diamonds may be worth further eval and those which may not be. If other tools are available and a diamond has excellent Idealscope images and other proven cut analysis tools, then the HCA 's use is limited, so go by the above mentioned methods rather than HCA.