Round to fancy cut, shape of a diamond does matter

Think of diamond and the image of a sparkling round stone crops up in your mind. However, the trend among diamond consumers in the country and abroad, especially in the US, Hong Kong, UAE and China is fast changing as far as a diamond's shape is concerned.

Diamond consumers have now begun to drift away from traditional round and princess-cut diamonds towards shapes such as pears, heart, radiant, ovals, marquise, emerald, asscher and cushion.

Diamantaires in the world's biggest diamond cutting and polishing centre in Surat say rounds are considered expensive and with their relatively lower prices, fancies offer buyers bigger pieces for less money.

Gujarat Heera Bourse (GHB) secretary Praveen Nanavaty, a leading diamantaire, told TOI, "Fancy cut diamonds are in high demand in the world markets. Earlier, round diamonds were ruling the global market. Now, out of 10 pieces of diamonds sold in the world, two are fancy cut diamonds."

Fancy shaped diamonds are less expensive. Manufacturing fancy cut diamonds requires less precision compared to the rounds and that the wastage is relatively much less.

The global polished diamond market is pegged at $60 billion per annum. While round and princess-cut are most popular, fancy cut diamonds have a $10 billion worth of market.

Nanavaty said fancy shaped rough diamonds from the mines are assorted as per their shapes. While there is 70 per cent wastage in processing round-cuts, fancy-cuts have a lesser wastage of 10 to 15 per cent. On the contrary, the time, skill and per piece wages required for cutting and polishing the fancy-cuts are much less than the round-cuts.

Surat's diamond industry is the world leader in manufacturing fancy-cuts. About 80 per cent of fancy cut diamonds - 10 out of the eight fancy cut diamonds - in the world are supplied by the diamantaires here.

"The fancy cuts like cushion, emerald, marquise, princess etc. are really in fashion as more people in the world want them even though they are less common in the market. Even people prefer fancy cuts in the wedding rings in US, China and Indian markets," said Rakesh Gandhi, a leading diamantaire dealing in fancy cut stones.

-www.timesofindia.com