I'm thinking that the centre of this stone may appear to be quite dark in a lot of lighting conditions. From the photo, the symmetry also appears to have some problems, but I don't know how obvious they would be in real life - this is magnified many times, making it easier to see that.

Hmmm..showing clearly here.
Anyone else having problems seeing them?

You are right about the darkness Jen.
It's generally not pervasive, but I can see it sometimes in real life.
I got a very good shot showing it.
To get this shot I had to really block off the light from the sides, and take the photo dead on straight- obscuring all the light going into the diamond.
As you can see, the focus is not great on the top of the stone. It's hard to replicate this effect in real life, to this extent.

The table facet is not centered over the culet .
Looking at the table with the 'X" running thru it, the quadrants that would cover 9 and 6 on a clock face are larger than the other two at 12 and 3.
The size and shape of the arrow reflections are too wide and do not end prior to passing into the bezel/kite facet. The reflections make some of the bezel facets look misshapen and not having sharply defined corners at the edge of the table. 
In addition there is an undefined darkened area in the center over the culet.

Good grief I haven't tried to identify facets by name in 23 years.  This is hurting my brain!

Oh, my , David that picture with limited lighting makes this diamond look like it is inhabited by dark spirits.  Quick return it to the cutter.   

I believe the reason it got "Fair" symmetry was the lack of all 8 pavilions being divided properly.
The black lines note how a nicely tailored pavilion facet  where the two lines meet at the girdle. ( Sparkly I'm with you in not remembering the names. Maybe OMC does)

The white arrows who how one of the pavilion factes was kind of sub divided at the lower arrow creating a squat triangle where a really tall one should be.
The result is a "straight line" facet.
Clearly, the cutter was making the best use of the unusual rough that he ( or she) knew how

Once you know this, looking at the front makes more sense- it's easier to spot how that effects the eight pavilion facets as the reflect up through the table.

Glad that was a good first post.  I am very much into looking at gems right now.  I am definitely not a pro, but I find my OCD tendencies make gem looking and learning to be fun for me.  I love to nit pick things to death.  Makes it hard to find the right stone for me a lot of times, but I love looking

As soon as I saw the bottom of the stone I could see that difference.  While I don't know what is right, my eyes seem to be drawn to something when it isn't similiar to the rest.

David - now that I can see the photos (don't ask me why), I have to say this is one of the best threads in a while. This is really teaching people about what can and cannot be seen, and why it matters. Thank you, Sir!

One question, if I may: is that pavillion facet the "extra facet" in the report?

Clgwli - welcome on board! Are you from Cornwall or Wales?  

Sparkly - don't be too scared of the dark photo. There is virtually no light entering the diamond (none from the pavillion, and the camera obstructing the table on top - leaving only a few rays going through the crown at a nearly horizontal angle), so it's no wonder that there is no light coming out. You could take the best cut diamond ever, put it in the same lighting conditions, and it would perform nearly as poorly. As to why the cutter did it, my guess is that it has to do with the magic number 101 - not as in Dalmatians, but as in points.

hi all,
very cool post! this is one of the diamonds from the new placeholder you're working with, are you going to keep it?  when you first showed it i was underwhelmed by the color.  why would the cutter cut a fancy  gray-green-yellow an RB?  don't those bring out the white in a diamond? and the gia calls it fancy colored, not light, i asked this before, i dunno if someone answered it yet, but to me this is VERY light. what gives?
do you think it could have had more color showing if it were cut differently? i don't understand this diamond at all.

Thanks everyone!!!

This stone does provide a great basis for a discussion about exactly what a "bad" cut is.
I'll cut to the chase and say that although there are many reason this stone is technically not well cut, the aspects that make it so may not be nearly as apparent as you might think. She's actually reasonably attractive in person

So, if a person with clgwli's OCD type tendencies ( just so you know I LOVE OCD people, as I'm probably one too) is shown the "defects, it may be a deal breaker for them.

What's also true, in my experience, is that other viewers may not only not be bothered by the some aspects that characterize this as not well cut, they may be drawn to those very aspects.

OMC brings us a very good about the really dark photo.
It was very hard to get that photo- as I had to completely block off light to the diamond- that makes getting an in focus shot near impossible.  


Part of this discussion is about what's known as "contrast"- or dark areas within a diamond.
If there was no contrast, you would not recognize it as a diamond.
Too much darkness- as I coaxed out of that one photo- and most people would not find it attractive at all.


As I wrote in the other thread about the stone, the cutter is a "Siteholder"-meaning they cut in literally thousands of carats a year.
They know what they are doing.
To recut the stone so that the pavilion facets were symmetrical would probably polish away a large percentage of the stone.

MC brought up a great point:
Was the cutter using methods to "save" the one carat weight?
Basically, a cutter can use certain "tricks" to leave extra weight on a .95ct stone resulting in a "thicker" 1.00.
In this case, I'd have to say that it's not likely the cutter was as interested in maintaining the 1.00 mark- as Fancy Colored Diamonds have no list by which buyers can "downgrade a stone that did not make the mark.
In other words, while a .99ct D/IF is worth a whole lot less than the 1.00ct version, a .99ct Fancy Vivid Yellow may actually be worth more than a 1.00 if the color is more attractive.

Good thing we love "odd" around here....heheh

Seriously...
There is a part of this having to do with semantics.
GIA's cut grade is fairly inclusive.
If we visualize the GIA "EX" cut grade as a one foot ruler it might help.
At one end is the extreme that just made it by being just deep enough.
At the other end is the group that just made it by not being a slight bit deeper.
I'm oversimplifying this, but there will be a large difference between two stones at different ends of the grade.
Therefore, GIA allowed some stones into the EX grade that some detail oriented folks will feel should not have been included.
But at what point do we place our faith in extreme opinions over GIA's well researched cut grade?

Since grading a diamond's cut is somewhat subjective, is it right to call one of the GIA "EX" cut grade stones "better cut" than the other?
Or could it be some prefer one over the other.
Taken to the extreme, and using pejorative descriptions such as "steep deep", there are people who would have you believe that what they like is "better" than what you like- and have "facts" to prove it.

Something is wrong with that system.

It's just that your screen name looks like some word in Welsh or Cornish - both languages use 'w' as a vowel, so you get sequences like pwll and ymchwiliad or even llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

clgwli - You are real! So many spam bots use a combo of letters like your name I nearly deleted you. But not without checking out your posts which are obviously the result of a real person with a genuine diamond passion.

You may all laugh at me now.