A Cut Above

As most people are now aware, diamonds are graded with 4 C’s.  Those being Cut, Colour, Clarity and Carat weight.  Some stores now wrongly say you have 5 C’s with the fifth being a Certificate.  To be honest, if you buy a stone from a long established and reputable jeweller, you should not have any problems. This does not make a certificate redundant, but lessens the need for one.  Many of the diamond dealers that we deal with have supplied Dipples for many many years. Quite often we know them not just as business associates, but as friends as well.  Like us many manufacturers are family businesses  and are often based in the UK.

In this post, I am going to start elaborating on the 4 C’s, saying what they are, and what makes each ‘C’ important.

Before I go any further in these blog posts, I am going to write a disclaimer.  These are what I consider to be the best way to view the 4 C’s, and when buying a diamond you should not just look at the certificate.  You are not buying a piece of paper you are buying an object of hand crafted beauty.  This is what we look for when buying diamonds from our suppliers.

Cut: – This is the most important aspect especially in a brilliant cut diamond, however it is slightly less so in other cuts as many of the fancier cuts do not have a definitive scale written down.  You will probably have heard of Hearts and Arrows, XXX (X stands for eXcellant) and Excellent as ways of describing a very well cut diamond.  The first too notions refer to a brilliant cut, with Hearts and Arrows describing a pattern within the diamond that is visible through a light filtered viewer, Hearts and Fireburst is the highest grade available.  To obtain this grade you need to have perfect symmetry with all the facets on the diamond.  Triple X refers to the highest grade available for Polish, Symmetry and Proportions.  In short that means each facet on the diamond is polished very well, all the facets line up closely and each facet is the appropriate size.  Please bear with me as this is where it gets complicated! Just because a diamond has a XXX grade, this does not mean that it will automatically get a Hearts and Fireburst grade.  You need to be right at the top of the scale for proportions and symmetry to be awarded a Hearts and Fireburst grade. Just as the polish would not affect the pattern seen in a Hearts and Fireburst stone which could mean it is not a XXX stone. However it would have X grades for symmetry and proportions. Phew, I hope that is clear!!

So why is this all important?  The way that diamonds are graded varies from Gem lab to Gem lab e.g. GIA use a scale of 5 grades from Excellent to Poor, AGS use a numerical scale from 0 – 10 (0 being highest) This leaves us as consumers with a very complicated system that is not standardised over all laboratories.  The grade that is assigned to the stone is a combination of factors, Brilliance, graded against the amount of light reflected out of a diamond, Fire, graded against the splitting of light in the colours of the spectrum and finally the Scintillation, this is the prettiest as it is graded by the amount of sparkle, life and fire within the stone when it is moved. Once these have been graded the overall quality of the cut dependant on the polish, symmetry and proportions are all factored together to produce a final grade(s).So what can happen if the stone is not the highest grade?  Well a few things can happen….  Firstly it would be cheaper, as the saying goes you get what you pay for, although ironically often a worse cut stone would be a larger carat weight, however I’ll cover that later.  So with diamonds I can say the size does not matter!  The perfect proportions for a diamond actually tend to make the stone look larger as the stone is not as deep but is approximately the same width at the girdle.  A stone that is too deep would tend to loose light from the pavillion facets (these are the facets at the back of the diamond).  The cut has a direct affect on the return of light and thus the brilliance of the stone.  Hearts on Fire have an image on their website that shows this perfectly.

Why have I covered the Cut first?  Quite simply this is what a diamond is all about, especially if it is a brilliant cut.  A diamond, cut depending, should be bright, sparkly and full of life.  This is why I said earlier that you should not buy a piece of paper, you need to visit a jeweller as diamonds have the ability to ‘speak’ to the wearer.  This is probably why they have been so popular as tokens of love and used in bridal jewellery for many years.  Every hand cut diamond is unique, the overriding vast majority of stones cut today are still hand cut, no two stones will ever be exactly the same.  This adds to the intrinsic beauty of a diamond.

At Dipples we are proud to deal with many diamond dealers, who I am sure would favour the quality of cut over the other C’s.  Please visit either store to see our large selection of diamonds!  Oh and did I mention we have the world’s most perfectly cut diamonds in store?  Hearts on Fire!  These are the benchmark that we use to help us choose the brightest and prettiest diamonds in Norfolk! !

GPS Timekeeping from Seiko

A first in watches!  This year at the Basel Watch and Jewellery fair, Seiko showed something that has never been seen before.  If you  want really precise timekeeping, wherever you are on the planet, this is the only watch for you. Introducing the Seiko GPS Solar powered Astron watch, it doesn’t even need a battery.

There are already various types of watch that receive time information from external sources: Radio-controlled, Digital GPS and others, but… 

Only the new Seiko ASTRON delivers what  everyone really wants: A self-powering watch that is accurate in every time zone.

To make a GPS watch, Seiko devised a system that breaks the planet up into 1 million squares and, from this database, it is able to calculate the time zone of the watch.  Unlike some other watches, in particular Radio controlled ones, the Astron is able to be ajusted on the move wherever you are.  It can update the time in 6 seconds and in ideal conditions will adjust the time zone in 30 seconds, a Radio controlled watch can take up to 120 seconds.  It does however share the same accuracy as a radio controlled watch which is to 1 second every 100,000 years

So what does it do?  Well, the Astron recognises 39 different time zones It has a perpetual calendar so the date is always accurate, even in leap years, up to February 2100.  For ‘Summer Time’ or ‘Daylight Saving Time’ you only need to press a button.  Whilst travelling on planes Seiko added a ‘Flight Mode’ switch, so it can’t interrupt any of a planes systems.

 A few facts and figures about GPS and more….
 
The current GPS network is composed of 24 satellites in earth orbit at a height of 20,000 km.  Four satellites orbit in each of six orbital planes.  There are about eight other satellites orbiting as ‘reserves’.  Each GPS satellite contains an atomic clock. By sending the signal that contains both its orbit position and the time, the satellite allows the receiver to pinpoint its position.

UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) was established in 1972. It is the world’s agreed standard of time, and replaced GMT.  UTC’s accuracy is guaranteed by a time standard called International Atomic Time which is calculated as a weighted average of time signals from about 300 atomic clocks around the world.

As international travel and communication developed in the 19th century, 24 time zones were agreed, each representing 15 degrees of the earth’s surface.  Today, national governments decide the time zone that best suits them, so the number of time zones in the world is not fixed. And not all time zones are one hour; Kathmandu is five hours and forty five minutes ahead of UTC. Delhi is five and a half hours ahead.  The 39 zones in the database of Astron offer the fullest coverage in any watch today.

The Seiko Astron watches will be available in late 2012.