Press Releases 
September 2000
To: All Media

EightStar Diamonds Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary

Santa Rosa, California—Long before the current wave of interest in "hearts and arrows," "super ideal" and other kinds of premium-cut diamonds hit America in 1997, a northern California company introduced the first and still the foremost of these finely-crafted stones in 1990. It's called the "EightStar" diamond because it reflects a perfectly-formed and symmetrical eight-rayed light pattern when viewed in a revolutionary cutting-analysis instrument called a "FireScope." This eight-rayed pattern is an indicator of precision that was unattainable until the invention of this instrument in 1984. It is also a confirmation that the diamond is sending maximum white light (brilliance) and spectral fire (dispersion) to the eye.

Until 1990, no one knew how to systematically and consistently cut diamonds with the "EightStar" pattern. That's when Kioyishi Higuchi, a Japanese cutter, finally discovered how to do so-after six years of research. Shortly thereafter, EightStar Diamond sent its entire cutting staff to Japan to be trained by Mr. Higuchi and won the exclusive rights in America to produce the EightStar diamond. The EightStar Diamond Company has remained this country's sole maker of this diamond ever since and is now celebrating its tenth anniversary.

The Proof of Perfection
Ironically, there might never have been an EightStar diamond if the FireScope required to cut it had met with success when introduced to America in 1984. Instead, it was greeted with hostility. Here's why:

The FireScope was the answer to a request from Japanese businessman Takanori Tamura for a device that would show the laymen exactly how well a diamond was cut. Tamura had heard that ideal-cut diamonds were the best from a standpoint of craftsmanship and light-output but had no way to tell just by looking at a stone if it actually qualified as such. 

With the FireScope, Tamura finally had a tool that could instantly prove or disprove claims of cutting excellence. How? "By directing red light into the upper portion of a diamond, one could see the path of light through a diamond," explains EightStar's founder and president, Richard von Sternberg. "Red indicated light was being reflected from the top of the stone; white indicated it was being leaked from the bottom. In a perfectly proportioned, symmetrical diamond with optimal light return, one saw a black image resembling an eight-rayed star swimming in a field of red." 

Since very few diamonds displayed the distinctive EightStar pattern when observed in Tamura's new viewer, the FireScope became far more of an indictment, rather than an indication, of cutting quality. No wonder it was feared by the trade.

From instrument maker to diamond cutter
After the chilly reception given his FireScope, Tamura decided to become a diamond dealer, using the instrument to prove the superiority of the stones he sold. There was only one trouble with this plan: he couldn't find diamonds that displayed the EightStar pattern. All but a very few stones failed to display the distinctive EightStar pattern. Since this pattern was the best proof ever found of diamond perfection, Tamura had to find a way to cut stones so that they would always produce it. 

That's when Tamura decided to start his own diamond factory. He hired Kioyishi Higuchi to manufacture diamonds to specifications for the ideal-cut diamond formulated by Marcel Tolkowsky, the brilliant Belgian cutter and mathematician, in his famous 1919 thesis on diamond cutting. But these diamonds, too, failed to display the EightStar pattern. Using the FireScope as a guidance tool, Higuchi eventually learned how to modify Tolkowsky's recommended-but theoretical-proportions so that finished stones would always exhibit the EightStar pattern. 

Ever since, the FireScope has played a crucial role in the fashioning of every EightStar diamond. It has also played as crucial a role in selling them by providing consumers with visual proof of excellence. Indeed, the EightStar image serves as a seal of quality assurance. Once the Japanese buying public understood what the EightStar pattern represented, sales of these diamonds took off.

EightStar comes to America
As orders for the EightStar diamond became greater than his factory could handle, Tamura needed assistance in meeting demand. And because he believed that America, long the world's biggest market for the ideal-cut diamond, would respond to his new and greatly improved ideal cut as favorably as Japan, Tamura decided the world's only other company dedicated entirely to the production of the EightStar diamond should be in this country. In 1990, after its cutters completed extensive training conducted by Higuchi himself, the U.S. company was granted exclusive rights to the EightStar name, as well proprietary EightStar cutting technology and techniques, in America-privileged rights it retains today. 

To this day, the EightStar Diamond Company cuts only EightStar diamonds. But unlike it counterpart producer in Japan, EightStar in America has recently branched into fancy color diamonds. This highly controversial move was made, says von Sternberg, "to call attention to the Great Divide in cutting standards between colorless and colored diamonds. It strikes us as unfair and unnecessary to deny the level of workmanship to fancy colors diamonds that the public has come to prize in colorless diamonds."

For more information, see www.eightstar.com.
    Note to editors: Von Sternberg available for interviews. Photos, head shot and B-roll available. Contact press@eightstar.com