Anyone know of FCD recut adventures (for better or wose)?

[demantoidz]

I find FCD recuts fascinating. They are often a gamble as they can either can improve color (at least within GIA's framework, which is internally consistent but not always accurate for how a stone looks/performs IRL) or result in a terrible loss of weight and value.

Has anyone here heard of such cases they could share?

I vaguely remember a PSer wanted to recut a green diamond but couldn't find the thread. Greens are risky due to the typically shallow nature of green coloration. Failures are probably much harder to find info about for obvious reasons.

Here's what I dug up but if anyone knows more stories please share! I couldn't find images of the stones before in all cases.

1) 1.71ct intense pink into 1.68ct vivid pink
Result:


2) 5+ct Fancy pink to 5+ct fancy intense pink
Before and after:


3) 1.41ct deep grey violet to 1.12 deep violet
More info in the post about how they went about it. I am amazed the experts at Argyle didn't see the potential. Pure violets are extremely rare.
Result:


4) 31.41ct to 28.15ct The Agra pink - couldn't find the colour grades. Fancy pink to intense pink?
I wonder how many antiques are butchered in this manner. I LOVE a good crushed ice (more than clean facets!) but a true antique like that... I know its common with colorless diamonds, but with such a historically important and valuable pink like this, I don't get it.



5) 16.10ct intense pink to 14.93 vivid pink
Result:


6) 9ct of unknown color grade recut to a 8.72ct vivid pink
Looks like it also may be a true antique, but at least the recut kept the original old cut look.



7) Not a recut, but related... Rough was pre-fromed into a round cut, eventually cut to 8.42 carat fancy intense pink cushion
Plans changed while preforming this diamond's rough to get an intense grading, resulting in poorer dispersion (by the way this site is amazing for additional photos/videos and educational reviews/critique of high end auction items).


8.) 48ct fancy blue broilette to.... 31.69 fancy blue pear cut...
The closest to a fail I found. Kudos to him for admitting it was a bad decision. I wish I was as rich as him dammit! I also want to mess around with 50 carat blue diamonds.



9) Last one because 10 might be considered spam
6 carat pear of unknown grading to a 4.03ct round deep blue. Perhaps the original was deep blue, dark blue, or some combination of blue and grey. The stone is definitely more attractive regardless of difference in value which is unknown to me.

 

[demantoidz]

Oh no something messed up with the images. I will fix it.

Fixed.

 

[chrono]

Nerves of steel (and oodles of simulations) to undertake such a task to recut.

 

[demantoidz]

Nerves of steel (and oodles of simulations) to undertake such a task to recut.

Indeed, and experience recutting is also very useful. The inspo for this thread was really the deep grey violet to pure deep violet transformation. The post reads:

"Careful analysis of the Ocean Seer revealed highly localized steel colored (Grey) graining close to the surface of one quadrant of the diamond. Months of extraordinary planning, microscopy and careful polishing allowed for the removal of the aforementioned gray graining eventually yielding a pure violet color unimpeded by any grey secondary color. "

Its a complicated process, and I wonder if the Argyle cutters thought of going in this direction and decided that the risk was too great, or they just dropped the ball.

I also wonder how common this is with much less valuable diamonds, eg 1-2ct yellows. Obviously these stones would not get articles written on them.

 

[demantoidz]

sorry for the double post but I cannot edit the above anymore
@Rockdiamond I wonder what your thoughts are as an experienced FCD vendor, do you have interesting recut stories?
Do you have an answer to my question here?

I also wonder how common this is with much less valuable diamonds, eg 1-2ct yellows. Obviously these stones would not get articles written on them.

 

[pokerface]

I believe the thread you're remembering about the fancy green is this one. Crazy story!!

 

[demantoidz]

I believe the thread you're remembering about the fancy green is this one. Crazy story!!

Yes! everyone should at least gloss over that story. So cool.

 

[T L]

The most famous FCD recut that was done to improve color, was the Wittelsbach blue diamond, that was purchased by Laurence Graff. It is a very famous historical diamond once owned by the Royal houses of Europe. Well, there was so much outrage he could take such an important historical piece and change it, but it became a better color per GIA after the recut. I guess everyone has their opinion on that. I could see historians arguing to leave it alone, but I can see a diamond collector/dealer, like Mr. Graff, changing it to improve color.

Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[LilAlex]

Nope, no experience with recutting a seven- or eight-figure FCD .

Looks like all kinds of fun, though!