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PaulE June 26, 2010

What is the source of the term "Ideal Cut"?

When was did the term ideal cut become well known, who invented it and what does it mean in detail?

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GaryO July 4, 2010

You would expect that defining "ideal cut" would be conducted by a big diamond institute, but Marcel Tolkowsky, a young 20 yrs old Belgian mathematician is actually the person behind this term. Tolkowsky, who had several gemologist in his family, conducted a study, examining the the angles between a round diamond's facets and how they affect the return of light from the stone. His conclusions were contradictory to data that has been collected before. Tolkowsky reached the conclusion that an "ideal cut" round diamond has 53% table percentage and 60% depth percentage. Some diamond experts accepted these new standards, while some claimed they aren't correct. American diamond institutes were impressed of the Tolkowsky standards and called it "American Ideal Cut", also called "Ideal Cut" in short. Some experts still prefered other diamond dimensions. In addition, producing a diamond with these "ideal cut" proportions requires cutting off quite a lot of rough diamond, which means its not very economic for diamond polishers, therefore many functionaries in the diamond industry had a good reason to object these standards. Nowadays, however, diamond polishers and dealers hardly lose money because of producing ideal cut diamond - This diamonds are considered very valuable hence they are very pricy.

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