Press Releases 
September 2000
To: All Media

EightStar Introduces Fancy Colors

Santa Rosa, California-According to conventional wisdom, the value of a fancy-color diamond lies almost entirely in its color. Specialists in these rarities say factors such as proportions, polish and symmetry which are critical to the beauty of colorless diamonds matter little, if at all, when cutting colored ones. “The cost of fancy color diamond rough is so great that cutters feel forced by economic necessity to focus on getting the maximum yield from a stone,” says Arthur Langerman, a leading Antwerp specialist in these diamonds.

So great is the emphasis on weight retention when cutting fancy-color diamonds that many dealers ridicule the need for fine-makes for these stones. According to Langerman, dealers fear that the brilliance and fire resulting from fine cutting weaken a stone’s color intensity, which, in turn, lower its grade and hurt its value. Hence in all the 35 years that he has sold only fancy-color diamonds, Langerman had never seen one of these gems cut for maximum beauty rather than bulk. “No one dared to challenge the tradition of cutting fancy colors strictly for weight,” he says.

No one, that is, until EightStar Diamond Company in Northern California. Early this year, the company, which cuts only precision-crafted round-brilliants, embarked on a long-overdue challenge to that tradition—at Langerman’s urging. “When I saw the magnificent colorless diamonds EightStar was cutting,” he recalls, “I was eager to see what kind of colored diamonds they would produce working to the same high standards.”

So was Richard von Sternberg, founder and president of EightStar Diamond Co. “It struck me as wasteful and tragic that most fancy color diamonds leave much be to desired when it comes to workmanship,” he says. “After all, why should the most valuable of all diamonds be deprived of the benefits of fine cutting?”

Why indeed. At the Basel Fair in March, EightStar bought a superb 1.02 carat colored diamond, graded “fancy vivid yellow” by GIA—the lab’s highest grade for this hue—expressly for recutting. “We wanted to see what would happen if we made the stone’s artistry as outstanding as its color,” says von Sternberg. “Of course, people thought we were crazy, some of them our own cutters. But we had to know once and for all: Would improving the make of a top-rated fancy-color diamond cost the stone its color grade?”

The answer, in the case of the yellow diamond, and every other stone that followed, is a resounding no. “Every fancy-color diamond we have cut has retained its original GIA color grade,” von Sternberg notes. What’s more, adds Langerman, “The color of an EightStar diamond improves thanks to the stone’s fire and life.”

From eyesores to eyefuls
It is easy to understand why Langerman’s fellow dealers and even some of von Sternberg’s co-workers thought cutting fancy-color diamonds for comeliness as well as color was sheer folly. After recutting, the 1.02-carat yellow diamond weighed 86 points. If GIA lowered the stone’s color grade, the stone would suffer a devastating loss in value. For the stone to be profitable, its color grade had to stay the same and its workmanship had to take a quantum leap from so-so to stunning—both of which happened. “It was a gamble,” von Sternberg admits, “but one that paid off handsomely.”

Initial success in recutting fancy-color diamonds has persuaded EightStar to become the world’s first maker of premium-cut diamonds to offer a full line of these treasures. “There is no longer any reason for a fancy-color diamond to be any less well cut than a colorless diamond,” von Sternberg declares. “Now we will offer colored diamonds that are full-fledged EightStar diamonds—no different in excellence from the colorless stones we have offered for 15 years. That means consumers can have the best of both worlds—color and craftsmanship—in the same diamond.”

Not every colored diamond can be an EightStar diamond. The company selects only exemplary stones that can withstand the increases in brilliance and fire that come with being cut to EightStar standards—generally considered the world’s fussiest—with no loss of color grade. “So far,” von Sternberg says, “only about 10% of the colored diamonds we have looked at would benefit from transformation into EightStar diamonds. But that’s more than enough for us to question the wisdom of depriving 99% of the fancy-color diamonds that we see of state-of-the-art workmanship.”

Langerman agrees. “I told EightStar I would welcome them recutting of my inventory of round cuts,” he says. “In any case, EightStar’s success with fancy color diamonds is going to give cutters and dealers alike second thoughts about the importance of fine cutting with regard to these stones.”
  

    For more information on EightStar Diamond Company and the FireScope, visit EightStar's web site www.eightstar.com.
    Note to editors: Von Sternberg available for interviews. Photos, head shot and B-roll available. Contact press@eightstar.com