This is a 15ct D IF Hearts and Arrows that was polished while I was in Surat. And next are a series of photo's of different factories all mixed up for anonymity. What you very quickly learn in this place however is the amazing thirst for knowledge and ways to improve anything and everything. That is why De Beers recently upset Belgian, New York and Israeli cutters and gave so much more of its rough business to Indian manufacturers. These guys are 'manufacturers' – they are not 'cutters' or 'polishers'.

The thirst for new technology and machinery led one manufacturer who was not satisfied with an 18 month wait for a German machine, to simply buy 51% of the company. There are companies with Ramon spectrographs, spectrophotometers and all the lab gear for detecting synthetic and HPHT treated diamonds. There are grading rooms set up with the very best microscopes and intensively trained staff for grading Flawless and VVS1 diamonds using the HRD method; these guys do only 4 to 6 stones a day.

The 2 'blocked out' diamonds in the stone paper have been sawn with a state of the art new laser saw. The black is carbon from the vaporization burning process. Underneath the black are nice diamonds that now just need polishing or as we say 'brillianteering'.