About Gemstone Cuts

A little piece of gem usually applauded due to its beauty and appearance involves a lot of work done to it. It goes through various stages of enhancements to please our eyes and each stage adds to its price and value aspect. One such stage is "cutting" or faceting a gemstone. Cut is not merely related to symmetry of a gem but it has got a lot to do with maximizing it's color and concealing flaws. On one hand where a nicely cut gem can turn a stone from raw to ravishing; a poor cut can diminish its color potential.

In gemstone trading a cut might refer to variety of things such as the shape of gem, its cutting style, its proportions or even finish. In actual cut is the process of faceting a gem and factors such as shape, style, proportion and finish are results of it. Hence these terms are used interchangeably.

When we talk about colored gemstones such as sapphire, ruby and emerald the main motive of cut is to maximize color to its full potential. In contrast to this, cutting in diamonds mostly relates to maximizing brilliance. There is no specific cut that applies to all colored gemstones unlike in the case of diamonds wherein the brilliant cut is widely accepted choice to go for. This is because colored gems have different levels of color concentration and transparency. In addition to this some gems also have color zoning that needs to be taken care of.

The most basic stage of judging a cut starts from ruling out visible flaws such as windowing or extinction. A widow is a see through washed out area on the facet of gem that is a result of improper faceting. A large visible window denotes poor cut. However sometimes this may be deliberate attempt to maintain weight of gem. This is the reason that valuable stones such as emerald, ruby and sapphire are less precise. Extinctions refer to dark zones found in a stone. Although most of the stone specially the dark one have extinction areas, a good cut can help reduce these.

After scrutinizing above defects next task is to judge the profile and the facet of gem to figure out its brilliance and color. The profile view of gem would suggest whether it is suitable for mounting on jewelry, help you judge its actual weight and tell whether the cutters goal was to enhance color or not. A deep cut in colored stones is aimed to darken the color. However to achieve a deep cut one has to sacrifice weight. Such type of stone is suitable for being mounted on jewelry. On the other hand a shallow cut is an attempt to sustain weight and lighten the color. Similarly the proportion of crown and pavilion has got a lot to do with sparkle and life of gem. While a low cut crown lacks sparkle, a pavilion that is too shallow or too deep lacks life.

Lastly one should look at the overall symmetry of stone. This relates to checking for a right girdle size and proportioning of surfaces such as the crown and the pavilion in relation to each other.