The best gift for the love of your life is the Hearts and Arrows Diamond – Know why?
Posted by Hari Krishna
March 2, 2021
The term, Hearts and Arrows diamonds is not strange for diamond buyers. These diamonds are famous for their exceptional cut, fire, and premium price.
In this blog, you will find everything related to H&A diamonds. Thus you can stay ahead of little cupid and make an informed decision while buying H&A diamonds.
So let’s get started!
The whole concept of H&A diamonds first emerged in the 1980s in Japan. Kazumi Okuda developed a tool named Firescope in the 1970s, using which Japanese jewellers discovered this kaleidoscopic effect (H&A effect) in round brilliant cut diamonds.
A brilliant round-cut diamond, crafted with ideal proportions (symmetry) and a high-degree of facet precision, exhibits sharp eight hearts in face-up view and eight arrows in pavilion view when examined under the Firescope.
Firescopes (modern H&A Viewer) use colored reflectors to display the optical symmetry/H&A pattern of the diamond, according to the direction, angles, and intensity of the light reflecting from a diamond.
The critical attribute of H&A diamonds is that all its hearts and arrows should be nearly identical to one another.
Back in the 1970s, the H&A diamonds did not feature the perfect pattern of hearts and arrows. However, with the growing advancements in diamond polishing techniques, the H&A pattern became more pronounced.
Once the H&A diamonds turned out more distinct, they slowly gained popularity across the globe, and their demand has risen rapidly and more increasingly ever since!
It is obvious to get confused between the H&A diamonds and Excellent round-cut diamonds because both have the same cut characteristics and the same number of facets.
People generally think that if a diamond is an excellent/ideal round-cut diamond, it must showcase the hearts and arrows pattern. Well, this is not entirely true.
Some brilliant round cut diamonds with excellent brilliance sometimes have an underwhelming hearts and arrows pattern.
Also, diamonds with precise H&A pattern are certainly the results of a well-cut diamond but may not have exceptional sparkle due to their lower clarity.
For the legitimate H&A diamond, the cut quality goes beyond the ideal/excellent grades. It is described as a super ideal-cut diamond, which signifies the diamonds have exceptional symmetry and facet-proportions.
Besides, the brilliance of a diamond is directly affected by its virtual facets. An optimized alignment of actual diamond-facets creates its bigger virtual-facets, which results in better diamond scintillations.
The H&A diamonds consist of bigger virtual-facets than the excellent round diamonds. That is the reason why H&A diamonds look livelier than brilliant round-cut diamonds.
Well, the whole concept of the Hearts and Arrows pattern is merely an illusion, no part of diamond ever cut in the shape of hearts or arrows.
When the diamond-facets are in the proper symmetry, they develop a harmonious brightness and contrast pattern through overlapped light reflection and create an optical illusion of the H&A pattern.
Let us see how?
• Forming the Heart:
The heart pattern in the diamond forms at the conjunction of the main pavilion facet and lower-girdle facet, through the inner light reflection of 12 diamond-facets (1 table facet, 4 star-facets, 1 bezel facet, and 6 pavilion facets).
Two lobes present in the heart pattern created by two lower girdle facets of the diamond. The main pavilion facet creates a gap with its reflection on the opposite side, which creates a V tip of the heart pattern.
The inner reflections of the other two star-facets of diamond crown square off the pointed shoulders and completes the heart pattern. The gaps between the hearts and v-shapes should be equal.
• Forming the Arrows:
The same 12 facets (1 table facet, 4 star-facets, 1 bezel facet, and 6 pavilion facets) creates the arrow pattern on the opposite side of the hearts (face-up view).
The reflection of the opposing shafts (made up of a pavilion and lower-half facet) makes a pointed tip of the arrow. All arrowheads should be extended to the girdle.
The divergent arrows must interlock. All arrowheads must align with the shafts, and all arrow points must align with the shafts around the hearts. All arrow tips must form a uniform center.
As stated earlier, diamonds with hearts and arrows in perfect optical symmetry may showcase less brilliance due to their lower clarity-grade or leakage of light.
Hence, like any other diamonds, quality grading is necessary for H&A diamonds. However, there are no particular grading standards for H&S diamonds, so it is very tough to grade them accurately.
Even GIA does not consider the hearts and arrows pattern in the diamond-cut grading. The reason is the uncertainty over the impact of the H&A pattern on the overall diamond appearance.
Although GIA sometimes notes where the H&A pattern is present in the diamond or not, on the diamond girdle. But it is provided only as additional information, not as a confirmation of the quality of the H&A pattern.
Apart from the symbolic meaning of love, there are many important reasons to buy hearts and arrows diamonds. Here are some of them.
• Craftsmanship:
As we have seen earlier, all diamond-facets must align in three dimensions to showcase the perfect Hearts and Arrows pattern.
This precision in faceting can only be achieved by the meticulously expert and skilled diamond cutter. Hence H&A diamond represents exceptional craftsmanship.
• Light performance:
The H&A diamond is the child of the precise facet alignment, which maximizes the reflection of light through diamond-facets and brings tremendous brilliance to the diamond.
And who does not like to wear the supremely fiery diamonds?
• Optimal symmetry:
Hearts and Arrows diamonds display better contrast patterning due to their well placed, perfectly aligned & angled facets and super ideal cut standards.
This contrasting pattern gives the H&A diamond a crisp and creates a more appealing appearance that steals the show.
• Uniqueness:
As we have seen, most diamonds do not show this intricate pattern of hearts and arrows, and wearing them is like wearing rarity.
As a diamond buyer, you must have noticed that the H&A diamonds often cost thousands of dollars more than the round brilliant cut diamonds.
One of the main reasons for this price-disparity is the rarity of the diamond. H&A diamonds are among the rarest of the rare gemstones in the world.
Another reason is, all well-cut diamonds (including H&A diamonds) consume almost 15% more rough material than any other diamonds. Also, crafting the well-cut diamond is a very time-consuming process and requires a highly skilled craftsperson.
All these attributes reflect in the price of H&A diamonds, making them premium-priced diamonds. However, only the precise pattern of hearts and arrows does not make it of high value.
Several subtle details of the H&A diamonds, i.e., shape, spacing, positioning of facets, significantly affect their desirability and value.
At this point, you might be wondering whether this extra expense on H&A diamonds is worth it or not.
Well, it entirely depends on the choice of the wearer. One can also find the perfect dazzling diamond of high-quality without an H&A pattern.
Though the heart pattern will be invisible once the diamond is set in the piece of jewellery, the intrinsic appeal of H&A diamonds is so vivid that it commands attention from across the room.
Are you looking for exceptionally brilliant diamonds to buy with an H&A pattern? Check out our latest inventory only on the HK.CO.
