#JOTW A 5ct OEC Finds a New Home and Some TLC

[prs]

@blingmeupscotty @lovedogs @Slick1 @Rubies-R-Me @RunningwithScissors @FL_runner @MissGotRocks @AllAboardTheBlingTrain @kathley
@idealw2boys @HollyC @Nancy Z @ellekay @Dandi @Sparkles88 @Austina @missy @yennyfire @tyty333 @ac117

Thank you all so much for your kindness and supportive comments. I am so sorry for the abbreviated reply, but all your responses have been somewhat overwhelming to me. Given all the requests for more info I figured I needed to catch up on my reply posts PDQ, before I got further behind.

Here are a few more photos to keep us going.



Got a little too close to the sun on this last one.

 

[prs]

Hoooooollyyy Moly!!! Gorgeous!!! I'm so happy you're willing to share the whole adventure with us.

Thank you for all that applause!

Happy anniversary to you and your lovely wife...and holy guacamole to that mind blowing, incredible, OEC. The setting is perfection and the recut really made the diamond shine. I absolutely love the warm color! My new ring is an O colored diamond too and I think it’s crazy how much they change with different lighting environments. That and how freaking bright / white can they look face up. I bet your DE can’t stop smiling!

@elle_71125 you are another new member of our O-P club. I have long admired your fabulous colored stone ring collection. I figured if you had a diamond it would have to be a multi-colored one.

Wow @prs ,congrats on your 40th wedding anniversary and the beautiful OEC! I’m blown away by
your find and your recut story! I hope to get to own something just as spectacular when I get to my 40th wedding anniversary. Your DW has great taste and she wears the ring beautifully!

Thank you for your very kind words. It doesn't matter how far away your 40th might be. Given how long we had to search, my advice is to start planning now!

 

[prs]

THUD! DEAD.
I'm so glad the persistence paid off. What a fantastic result! I'm so glad you left a little wonkiness..I believe that and a slight warmth are the hallmark charm and appeal of an OEC. I'm so happy things worked out this way for you guys!

@CHRISTY-DANIELLE I'm so glad you saw this thread. I wanted to particularly thank you for the help and encouragement you offered during our search, and when I was trying to unravel the mystery that goes into identifying a beautiful OEC.

 

[MamaBear]

This is absolutely stunning! What a wonderful way to celebrate!

 

[finerthings]

Gorgeous diamond ring and congratulations on your 40th!!

I love reading all of your wonderful detailed posts describing your wife's various jewelry pieces. She has a fabulous collection, and I second the vote of you starting a thread about all her pieces.

 

[Laila619]

Dang, that is SPECTACULAR!!

What a 40th celebration! Happy anniversary.

 

[LightBright]

Congratulations to you and your wife on your anniversary. Together, you determined what you wanted, you had persistence, and you found it! The results are one of the most gorgeous and huge antique diamonds I’ve ever seen. It looks perfectly at home in your amazing DKJ setting. I love all views of it...love the top down intricacy of the faceting -and- the gorgeous chunky profile in the delicate lattice basket. I Love that O-P color in the white metal of the setting, it looks so classic to me. The ring looks perfect and comfortable on your wife’s hand, as if it had always been there! Congratulations on this beautiful and truly special diamond and ring.

 

[Taylorbug!]

Absolutely Beautiful! I was also gifted an OEC O-P for my 40th anniversary (no where near as large as yours) but I never thought I would like an O-P color until I laid my eyes on it an fell in love!

Happy Anniversary.....and many many more!

 

[Catmom]

Wow, it's stunning all the way around! Congratulations on your 40th!!

 

[prs]

This is absolutely stunning! What a wonderful way to celebrate!

Thank you so much!

Gorgeous diamond ring and congratulations on your 40th!!

I love reading all of your wonderful detailed posts describing your wife's various jewelry pieces. She has a fabulous collection, and I second the vote of you starting a thread about all her pieces.

Thank you, I know I can sometimes get too detailed. The recut story is delayed because I'm deciding what details I can leave out so it doesn't get way too long.

Dang, that is SPECTACULAR!!

What a 40th celebration! Happy anniversary.

Thank you for your kind words!

Absolutely Beautiful! I was also gifted an OEC O-P for my 40th anniversary (no where near as large as yours) but I never thought I would like an O-P color until I laid my eyes on it an fell in love!

Happy Anniversary.....and many many more!

Thank you. Another member of the O-P club...I never knew there were so many of us! Happy 40th to you too!

Wow, it's stunning all the way around! Congratulations on your 40th!!

Thank you @Catmom

 

[prs]

Congratulations to you and your wife on your anniversary. Together, you determined what you wanted, you had persistence, and you found it! The results are one of the most gorgeous and huge antique diamonds I’ve ever seen. It looks perfectly at home in your amazing DKJ setting. I love all views of it...love the top down intricacy of the faceting -and- the gorgeous chunky profile in the delicate lattice basket. I Love that O-P color in the white metal of the setting, it looks so classic to me. The ring looks perfect and comfortable on your wife’s hand, as if it had always been there! Congratulations on this beautiful and truly special diamond and ring.

Thank you for your very kind and perceptive words! We owe a lot to Amy at DKJ who found the diamond for us and then encouraged my wife to go with the setting she loved rather than a more traditional setting typical for OECs. DW prefers clean, simple, more contemporary settings for her jewelry, but for a day or two wrestled with the idea that an old cut diamond belonged in an old style setting. Amy also did a fabulous job helping adjust the CAD to better suit the proportions of our diamond. Here are the DKJ studio pictures of the setting.

 

[xxxxxx]

Thank you for your very kind and perceptive words! We owe a lot to Amy at DKJ who found the diamond for us and then encouraged my wife to go with the setting she loved rather than a more traditional setting typical for OECs. DW prefers clean, simple, more contemporary settings for her jewelry, but for a day or two wrestled with the idea that an old cut diamond belonged in an old style setting. Amy also did a fabulous job helping adjust the CAD to better suit the proportions of our diamond. Here are the DKJ studio pictures of the setting.

I think the setting marries modern and old/antique into one beautiful ring (:

 

[bludiva]

congrats! going to add this to the flower basket thread

 

[prs]

If you ask a diamond cutter to give you an ideal cut MRB, he'll know exactly what you want. However there are no rules that describe an ideal cut OEC. They come in many beautiful flavors and the cut proportions of those flavors are all different. So the first thing about an OEC recut is you yourself have to know exactly what flavor you want. It's possible you can then get your cutter to give you that flavor, but not likely. OECs are a miniscule fraction of the round diamond market so the odds of your cutter having OEC experience are not good. David Klass took us to meet three different cutters, and while all of them recognized our diamond as an OEC, none of them had ever even heard of the flower petal pattern, or had any idea how to cut one. So an OEC recut comes down to not only do you need to know the flavor you want, you will most likely need to know what cut proportions will give you that flavor.

It took me many weeks looking at all the gorgeous OECs here on PS to sort out the different flavors. Let me say that all the different flavors can be beautiful, there is no right or wrong, it's just a matter of personal preference. To me the facet pattern on the crown outside of the table, and the facet pattern under the table are both important. For outside the table we prefer the star facets to be aligned with the table, creating two perfect squares and adding some symmetry. This photo is borrowed from the August Vintage, now Distinctive Gem, website.



Note how the stars facets align with the table to form two perfect squares and an eight pointed star . I think this is how star facets got their name.



Here's a photo from the Victor Canera website, the pattern is also beautiful but the stars don't align. All down to what pattern you prefer.

Also on this diamond note the pattern under the table, this is what I know as the flower petal pattern, and is very much what DW prefers.



Here's another photo from Victor Canera with an under the table pattern typical of many, if not most OECs, and all Old Mine Cuts. I think this is called the pinwheel pattern.

 

[prs]

Once we knew what OEC flavor we liked I had to find out what cut proportions gave those flavors. I apologize if I'm being too pedantic here, but this process was integral to a successful recut. To start I knew next to nothing about diamonds so I had to learn a whole new trade vocabulary. Most important was the names of all the different facets on a diamond. I had to know this stuff to read a Sarine and be able to have an intelligent conversation with anybody in the trade. This diagram helped a lot.



I knew that aligning the star facets with the table would not be a problem, but creating the flower petal pattern was much more of an issue. I learned this pattern was determined by the length of the lower half facets, but nobody knew how long they needed to be. Also the strength of this pattern varied, and DW was adamant she wanted a visible pattern and not one she needed to use a loup to see.

The great thing about our diamond, it was already 90% of the way towards what we wanted. It faced up so white and sparkled like crazy, so the crown and pavilion angles were great, no matter how wonky, for sure we were not going to touch them. We confirmed that aligning the star facets with the table would not be an issue, and could be done during the crown clean up process. Our diamond did not have a flower petal pattern but, looking thru a loup, we could see one or two of the lower half facets peeking out from under the table. We could see a few more hiding under the table when we tilted the diamond. I thought I knew how to make a more visible pattern but, as they say, I was going to have to put our money were my mouth was.

DW and I discussed all this before we proceeded with the purchase. The big risk was would we fall below 5.0ct before the recut was finished, the value of a 4.99ct diamond being about $7,500 less than an 5.01ct. David and the most experienced cutter we talked to both felt that our cushion of 5.22ct would be enough to keep us above 5.0ct mark but, of course, nothing was certain. What happened when stabilizing the girdle being the most problematic.

Anyway, David Klass had never let us down in the past, and we knew we could rely on him to help us get thru the recut process, so having waited months to find "the one" we decided to go ahead with the purchase.

 

[prs]

David, DW, and I got together with our chosen cutter for a planning meeting. It was agreed the first stage of the recut would be to take care of the girdle chips, together with stabilizing the girdle. The second stage of the recut would be to clean up the crown facets and align the stars. The third stage would be to cut in the flower petal pattern as necessary. Our cutter hoped he could finish the recut in a day, and the plan was we would all get together in his office at the end of each stage and evaluate our progress.

Here's a photo showing the thin, bruted girdle before the recut. We decided to get a faceted girdle on the recut.



Our little hearts were pounding waiting for the cutter to call on the morning of the recut. This was the most risky part of the process, and I thought we could easily lose 10 points as the girdle was cut down. We dashed to his office when the call came in to hear the great news; all went well and we only lost 2 points! How could it be that we went from a diameter of 10.95x11.11 down to 10.77x10.85 and and only lost 2 points? In retrospect I realize it was because we were shaving off a wafer thin girdle, if we were cutting a regular girdle the loss would have been much greater.

These Sarine machines are fantastic. The diamond is placed table down on the face of a camera, the cover is closed, the cutter clicks his mouse, and right away a full Sarine report appears on his computer screen. The whole thing takes less than thirty seconds!!! Here are copies of the girdle diagrams taken from the before and after reports.





The chips were gone, the girdle looked great, and we only lost 2 points, needless to say we were very happy campers. We now had a 5.20ct diamond and on to stage 2!!!

 

[Bron357]

wow wow wow
@prs please let the delightful Mrs prs know that I am available for mature age sibling adoption.
You can never have too many sisters
And my only request is that, out of sisterly love, I’m allowed to play in the jewellery box.

 

[LightBright]

Wow PRS, what an incredible fantastic journey! The results are brilliant!

 

[voce]

WOW! Congrats on the important anniversary! The ring is beautiful and suits her very well!

 

[Ally T]

Have just come back for another look.

Yep, I'm still drooling........

 

[prs]

congrats! going to add this to the flower basket thread

How did I miss the flower basket thread? DW will get lots of inspiration from these gorgeous settings!! I might wait till our 50th to show it to her!

wow wow wow
@prs please let the delightful Mrs prs know that I am available for mature age sibling adoption.
You can never have too many sisters
And my only request is that, out of sisterly love, I’m allowed to play in the jewellery box.

I remember when I first discovered PS and my first post asked if a 4ct sapphire pendant was big enough. IIRC you suggested I should look at a huge sapphire necklace instead, and you remarked you were "a big or go home" kind of girl. Well it turns out my wife is cut from the same cloth, and will be delighted to be your bling sister. You will certainly be allowed to play in her jewelry box, but only if she gets to play in yours!

WOW! Congrats on the important anniversary! The ring is beautiful and suits her very well!

Thank you @voce! Do you think I could sneak a diamond into the Colored Stones Forum?

 

[bludiva]

I might wait till our 50th to show it to her!

hahahaha!

 

[Yimmers]

OMG, what a wonderful ring! I know it was a long process, but it was clearly worth the effort.

Do you have any pictures of the diamond in the holder after the recut. It would be great to see a before/after shot side by side with each other!

And of course, more handshots please!!!!

 

[prs]

Before I continue with Stage 2, I need to say something about my plan to create a flower petal pattern. DW had decided she preferred her GIA report to read "Old European Cut" rather than "Circular Brilliant". In order to qualify as a GIA OEC a diamond has to have a Table equal to, or less than 53%. With our original Sarine reading 48% we were in great shape and had room to open up the Table to 52%. We could already see some of our Lower Half facets were peeking out from under the Table. I knew opening up the Table by another 4% would expose more of the Lowers and create a good flower petal pattern. So as part of Stage 2, whilst our cutter was working to clean up all the bruised crown and table facets, he was also going to open up the table to 52%.

What a great plan! However if I was a little smarter I would have figured out this plan was doomed before it even began!

The first major issue was that in stabilizing the girdle we changed the width of our diamond from 11.03 to 10.81. Of course every other diamond dimension is expressed as a % of the width, so our table increased from 48% of the old width to 50% of the new width. We were so excited how well Stage 1 went that I only glanced at the new Sarine, I didn't know my potential for a 4% gain had already been cut in half. Here's a copy of of the Stage 1 Sarine.



The second issue is how the table is actually measured. You may recall our table had been polished down sometime in the past, and some of its corners no longer met. Here's a copy of the Sarine Facet Diagram showing how that 50% Table was measured.



You can see the rounded off corners are impacting the measurement. If the eight sides of the octagon were extended so they met, the table would be bigger. The Lowers extend thru the middle of the eight sides so I calculated the "effective table" wasn't 50.0% it was really 51.6% !!!



So adding both issues together we already had a 52% table, and no room left to get the flower petal pattern. I just didn't know it, ignorance was bliss!

One other thing that happened when we stabilized the girdle is we cut off the points where the Upper Half facets meet the Bezel facets at the girdle. You can see this on the Facet Diagram. Our cutter successfully fixed these whilst working on the crown.

When we got the call that Stage 2 was complete, we found an absolutely beautiful diamond. All the crown facets were clean and sharp, including the table corners, and the stars were aligned with the table to form two perfect squares! We only lost 8 points during this stage and we now had a beautiful 5.12ct OEC. DW remarked she couldn't see the flower petal pattern, and neither could I. We already knew it's much easier to see OEC facet patterns in the shade so we put it down to the room being very bright. Here's a copy of the Stage 2 Facet Diagram



On to Stage 3!

 

[bling_dream19]

Wow this is such a beautiful story of your persistence, intellect and unrelenting desire to get your wife what she dreamed of! And you did it!! This diamond is so beautiful I love the petals and that took my breath away. The warmth is gorgeous and I love the setting! Your DW listened to her heart and chose the perfect setting for her. Congratulations on your anniversary and marriage! Wishing you both much joy and blingy love.
And yes more pics are always wanted lol

 

[prs]

OMG, what a wonderful ring! I know it was a long process, but it was clearly worth the effort.

Do you have any pictures of the diamond in the holder after the recut. It would be great to see a before/after shot side by side with each other!

And of course, more handshots please!!!!

Thank you! Sorry, but after we finished recut Plan B and DW was satisfied she could see the flower petal pattern, and was sure this was "the one". We gave it to Amy to send to GIA. Didn't see it again until it was set. More photos coming!

Wow this is such a beautiful story of your persistence, intellect and unrelenting desire to get your wife what she dreamed of! And you did it!! This diamond is so beautiful I love the petals and that took my breath away. The warmth is gorgeous and I love the setting! Your DW listened to her heart and chose the perfect setting for her. Congratulations on your anniversary and marriage! Wishing you both much joy and blingy love.
And yes more pics are always wanted lol

Thank you so much for your kind words.

One thing I forgot to mention about the setting is the CAD team assumes all round diamonds have the proportions of an MRB. Of course with a high crown, and a pavilion shortened by the culet OECs have much different height proportions than an MRB. When I mentioned this to Amy and gave her our exact proportions, she adjusted our CAD and the new total setting height came out 0.8mm lower.

I know this setting story is getting way too long and boring. I promise to wrap it up with a short and sweet finale tomorrow.

 

[prs]

in the meantime three more pics.

 

[Polyhex]

I love the detailed story of your recut process, and I think it is very special that you got to see the diamond in each stage as it was being recut, talk to your lapidary artist, and have such intricate input into the final result! And to do it all in one day while you were hanging out and checking in on the magic... it's the ultimate adventure!! If Disney had a diamond theme park!

Few questions...

• What did you do in between each stage? Were you checking out jewelry, wandering around, working?
• Did you take photos of the "in-between" phases of the diamond?

IMO this is the round petal or "bubbly" flower pattern. Very few OECs have the cut or symmetry to achieve this. You can see it with a tad more rounding of the petals here:



The "bubbly" or round petal flower pattern is similar in cut to yours, but with a smaller table so it halts the petals before they elongate.

I think of these as the pinwheel pattern which is more typical of early OECs or somewhat disorganized OECs, and some OMCs. You can see the facets under the table don't look like a flower at all, there is no tapering or inconsistent tapering before the table ends. .

 

[kimberlyqkim]

Wow so fascinating! Thanks for letting us be part of this journey and learn from you! And of course, a stunning ring!

 

[Kim N]

I'm really enjoying reading your story. Could you speak to how you got insurance for the recut?