Just imagine owning a diamond mine. Some unknown great-uncle of you has passed away, and you have just received notice of your inheritance: a real diamond mine.

 

Your first reaction will be one of sorrow of course. After all, a member of the family has died, and this touches you personally. But the idea of owning a mine full of diamonds offers a silver lining in this time of grief.

 

When you are trying to sleep, the image of Scrooge McDuck taking a bath in the center of his mine of polished diamonds keeps coming back to you. The next day, you promise yourself, you will be doing exactly the same thing, upon your first inspection of your new asset.

It is January 15th, when I am writing this, and after the rush of the holidays, the cleaning up afterwards and the New Year’s receptions, it is now time to look ahead at what 2005 will have in store for the diamond industry.
 
Discuss...
 

In the course of this first quarter of 2005, AGS will launch new grading reports for princess-cuts. For the first time in the history of diamonds and grading labs, there will be a cut-grade on a fancy shape. While we are preparing and cutting some princesses in order to get a 0-grade, we are amazed by the major changes that this new grading report demands. I will try to highlight these here.
 
Discussion
 

Some time ago, I reported you about our experiences while cutting the first princess-cuts, in order to obtain the new AGS-0-cut-grade.Last week, we received a first batch of six stones back from AGS. Let me tell you how we experience the grading of AGS.

Discuss...

In a round stone, the depth of a stone, measured as a percentage of the diameter, is a direct indication of the spread of that stone. Basically, one could say that a higher depth means a lower spread, while a lower depth indicates a higher spread.Unfortunately, using well-known and tested procedures for rounds on fancies does not always work, and very often, one could be misled by simply using the rule for rounds on fancies. The depth of a princess-cut is a classic example.

July 29th today. About half a year ago, I wrote an article looking ahead at events and trends in the diamond industry during this year. Today, the Antwerp diamond business closes for their Summer holidays, and it is a good time to look at whether predictions came true and where my predictions were incorrect.

In a previous article, I briefly touched the aspect of perception in our judgement of numbers. I made the case, that since most diamond professionals first gather their knowledge with round brilliants, that they automatically apply rules for rounds to fancy shapes. This is also true with numbers.In this article, I will give you some examples how numbers and perception can interact.

This is the story of a parcel of rough diamonds, which we bought in February

Coming back from holidays, and trying to catch up with Pricescope, I saw a lot of discussion and agreement about diamond-cutting being an art, and hence diamond cutters to be artists. At first, I felt like I had to disagree with this notion.