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It's easy to see why people are drawn to older diamonds. The older cut design draws light from it's surroundings differently than a modern cut diamond. I've heard it said that the facet design of diamonds cut before the advent of electric lights was influenced by the lighting environment of the day, and by the methods available to cut diamonds then.

It could be said that the modern brilliant cut is the pinnacle of diamond design. To some people it is. However, it would be very easy to make the case that in gaining something, as we do with the modern brilliant cut diamond, we also lose something.

For example, modern brilliant cut diamonds can have very tiny facets. Older cut diamonds generally have much larger facet areas. This affects the entire look of the diamond. Which is better? I believe that it is in the eye of the beholder.

Since this is a modern cut diamond, this "vintage" facet pattern is laid on using the most modern technology. The goal is to maximize the perceived color- and the results are startling.

I think it's a mark of both how difficult it is to grade these colors- and the fact they've rarely, if ever,  had to grade stones cut like this in these colors- that I feel there's been a bit of inconsistency in the grading.

Or I'm just peeved they gave this stone Y-Z when it look like a fancy yellow.

Although you can see the little "garden" in the center of the stone in these photos, it's very hard to see in real life.

Why are older cut diamonds rare?

You might ask yourself, since diamonds last virtually forever, what happens to all the older diamonds?

It could very well be that the diamond someone selects today, which is" brand-new", is actually a recut of an old diamond.

If a diamond was a really good diamond from way back when, it makes all the sense in the world to recut that diamond to modern standards, from a financial standpoint.

That's one reason a lot of the older stones which survived intact, of those that are not high white diamonds. There's far more financial incentive

Why don't we see more older stones in fancy colors?

It stands to reason that when they mined diamonds in the old days, they unearthed some fancy colored diamonds as well. We can only speculate as to why we don't really find that many older cut fancy colored diamonds.

One likely explanation is the same fate as higher white, more valuable stones.

Recut.

These branded Diamonds by Lauren Cushions are unique, to the best of our knowledge. The first modern diamonds, cut in antique style- specifically to showcase the natural light yellow color.

Beautiful.... artful facet design combined with the precision execution. The stones are gorgeous.  All are laser inscribed.

Story of the Double Decker

This diamond design was modeled after one of the first massive yellow diamonds to be cut. The cutter was the distinguished gemologist George F Kunz. The stone was cut in 1878.

The facet pattern on the right below plots the stone in the photo above

facet pattern from Max Bauer's 1904 book Precious Stones

I took that pattern and modified it to reflect the pattern on our modern interpretation of the "double decker"

One immediately noticeable difference is the depth- the modern stone is not as deep as the older style- which is quite deep by modern standards. The result is that the modern stones have a nice size to weight ratio- they look big for their weight.

The other main difference is the smaller facets on the bottom of the older style- this gives the modern versions a "chunkier" feel.

In the photo above I've outlined the line of facets which encircles diamond diamond above the girdle ( widest point)- creating the "double-decker"