Following up here for the outcome. Just got this back from Brian Gavin and it looks great! I think it's an excellent outcome and am curious what others think. Terrific experience with Brian -- we ended up chatting briefly once or twice when I was on the fence and needed some hand-holding. The process was not fast -- but a lot of the hold-up was on my end.
Recall that this had been a 2.01 overly-flat/spready J-color VS2 with a 40+ year-old GIA report that pre-dated angles.
I was forewarned by many that I could get a harsher GIA grading than that of nearly a half-century ago. Brian further cautioned me that he was balancing weight retention vs. excellence of cut and that he could not guarantee XXX because the ability to achieve X for polish depended upon the crystal orientation and he could not know that until the cutting started. And it ended up that that was not attainable. (I was not familiar with anisotropy in diamond hardness.)
This was the BEFORE state:
These were the proportions of the stone in its BEFORE state that Brian and his team determined and then used for planning (these were the data that were missing from the ancient GIA report):
And this is from the AFTER GIA report:
Went from 2.01 to 1.69 cts (a hair below my goal of keeping it at 1.7, but still a modest loss of 0.32 cts) and the clarity grade dipped from VS2 to SI1 (with no change in the GIA mapping of the flaws when I compare visually). Unexpectedly (and happily), the color improved three grades to G (!). And he achieved X for cut and symmetry.
And these are BGD's actual ASET and H&A images -- these are not "virtual" simulations:
And these are the results when I enter the new specs into the HCA:
So it looks like this falls where we had hoped. Fun process, great outcome, not a ton of money, and only a little nerve-wracking.
Curious to hear what folks think. I'm delighted with the outcome! (And I have no idea what to do with it yet.) "Mind-cleanliness" aside, I may have "made money" on this because of the much better color grade -- which is more impactful vis-a-vis pricing than the VS2 -> SI1. And I was already warned that no modern buyer would accept that ancient VS2 so it would have needed a new report and would have ended up with a SI1 grade even without the re-cut.
Any thoughts...?
Recall that this had been a 2.01 overly-flat/spready J-color VS2 with a 40+ year-old GIA report that pre-dated angles.
I was forewarned by many that I could get a harsher GIA grading than that of nearly a half-century ago. Brian further cautioned me that he was balancing weight retention vs. excellence of cut and that he could not guarantee XXX because the ability to achieve X for polish depended upon the crystal orientation and he could not know that until the cutting started. And it ended up that that was not attainable. (I was not familiar with anisotropy in diamond hardness.)
This was the BEFORE state:
These were the proportions of the stone in its BEFORE state that Brian and his team determined and then used for planning (these were the data that were missing from the ancient GIA report):
And this is from the AFTER GIA report:
Went from 2.01 to 1.69 cts (a hair below my goal of keeping it at 1.7, but still a modest loss of 0.32 cts) and the clarity grade dipped from VS2 to SI1 (with no change in the GIA mapping of the flaws when I compare visually). Unexpectedly (and happily), the color improved three grades to G (!). And he achieved X for cut and symmetry.
And these are BGD's actual ASET and H&A images -- these are not "virtual" simulations:
And these are the results when I enter the new specs into the HCA:
So it looks like this falls where we had hoped. Fun process, great outcome, not a ton of money, and only a little nerve-wracking.
Curious to hear what folks think. I'm delighted with the outcome! (And I have no idea what to do with it yet.) "Mind-cleanliness" aside, I may have "made money" on this because of the much better color grade -- which is more impactful vis-a-vis pricing than the VS2 -> SI1. And I was already warned that no modern buyer would accept that ancient VS2 so it would have needed a new report and would have ended up with a SI1 grade even without the re-cut.
Any thoughts...?
No, there was some stroke of luck there. A little color at the culet can do a lot (i.e., of good in a sapphire and, presumably, bad in a colorless diamond) but the vertical dimension was hardly affected by the re-cut (~ 0.1 mm) so not sure where the color was shed from. Clearly was not homogeneous, color-wise, since it "only" lost 16% of its mass. 
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