“Go beyond the 4Cs, develop your eye for shape and details, and always remember the right diamond, the one, it will speak to you. So choose your diamond with your heart for that's where its whisper is heard.” These are the words of the Asscher family, who discovered over six generations that each diamond has its own personality and characteristics of rarity and clarity as unique as human fingerprints, snowflakes and flowers. Diamonds are formed across billions of years, developing identities shaped by this vast amount of time, each born a breathtaking miracle of nature revealed in its most beautiful form by a true master's cut.
Diamond cutting is a fine art. The right cut unlocks a diamond’s beauty. The wrong cut destroys the stone. To us at Royal Asscher, diamond cutting is a calling almost two centuries old. And how we reveal the ultimate beauty hidden within a diamond as each facet is meticulously designed with the geometry of the shape and its relationship to the light in mind.
As we grew in knowledge, experience, and expertise since cutting our very first diamond in 1854, Royal Asscher’s impeccable reputation for unmatched cutting craftsmanship led to some of the finest diamonds in history having been shaped by the hands of an Asscher. Below are aspects of diamond cutting that make the difference:
Polish:As a diamond is polished, it develops a mirror-like surface. The more accomplished the polisher, the more luminous the luster.
Symmetry:Symmetry is both art and science. A diamond cutter must ensure that every facet of the diamond is perfectly aligned, mirroring and complementing its opposing facets. The more symmetrical the facets, the greater the sparkle.
Proportion:Proportion dictates how the diamond refracts light. A well-proportioned diamond exhibits fire, brilliance, and scintillation.
Fire:It is not just white light. Fire refers to how light splits into the spectral colors of the rainbow and moves within a diamond, hence the term diamond fire. Royal Asscher diamonds release the most incredible intensity of diamond fire based on industry-standard measurements.
Brilliance:Brilliance is a technical term for the abundance and return of white light from a polished stone.
Shape/Finish:The final product is the overall shape and arrangement of facets to create a diamond you fall in love with at first sight.
White Diamonds:White Diamonds are graded on a scale from D, which is colorless, to Z, yellow-tinted. A grade “D” diamond is the most valuable color because of its rarity in nature.
Royal Asscher diamonds are independently laboratory color-graded in perfect standardized lighting conditions.
Our diamonds are either colorless D/E/F grades or nearly colorless G/H/I grades.
Fancy Colours:Fancy Colours refer to diamonds that have a body-color other than white. These colors can range from bright hues of yellow, orange, pink, and red to darker purples, blues, and even black. Some have chameleon colors that change according to the light. Fancy colors are remarkably rare and determined by trace elements in the diamond’s natural growing conditions.
Would you like to source a fancy colored diamond? Our Bespoke Diamond Service can help you make your dream diamond a reality. Contact us at bespoke@asscher.nl
Billions of years of intense heat and pressure from volcanic forces shape the carbon atoms underground into diamonds as we imagine them. In fact, a diamond’s clarity is dependent on the amount of time, heat, and pressure, the more of each, the clearer the stone. Clarity is defined by nature and cannot be altered, only graded.
Inspecting a diamond under 10x power magnification allows the grader to detect blemishes or ‘inclusions’ in the stone, affecting its grade. A flawless diamond showing no internal flaws or external inclusions is rare: the fewer the flaws and inclusions, the more valuable the diamond.
FL: Flawless.No internal or external inclusions or blemishes.
IF: Internally Flawless.No inclusions, only insignificant blemishes.
VVS1/2:Minuscule inclusions, impossible to see with the naked eye and very difficult to detect at 10x magnification.
VS1/2:Minor inclusions that are impossible to see with the naked eye and somewhat difficult to detect with 10x magnification.
SI1/2:Small but noticeable inclusions that are clear at 10x magnification and may also be noticeable by the human eye.
I1/2/3:Imperfect. Obvious inclusions visible to the naked eye.
The number after the clarity grade refers to the number, size, nature, and position of inclusions. Lower numbers are smaller, whiter, and located on the outer parts of the diamond, which makes them harder to see and the diamond more valuable.
A diamond’s weight is measured in carats. One carat equals 0.2 grams. Heavier diamonds, meaning larger diamonds, are the rarest, with only one diamond in history - the Cullinan - weighing more than 1,000 grams.
A diamond’s weight does not necessarily determine its appearance or value. While everyone loves the glamour of a large carat diamond, two diamonds of the same weight can vary widely in price when clarity, color, and cut are considered.
Royal Asscher diamonds are cut to maximum beauty, not carat weight. No matter the size, we craft the ultimate expression of each diamond’s beauty through our signature cuts, embodying the spirit of the House of Asscher in every stone.
