From the studio · Stones, plainly
How a stone is cut, and why it matters
The short answer: Cutting is the only part of a gemstone a human decided. Angles, symmetry, and polish determine whether light comes back at you or leaks out the bottom, and a well cut stone at a modest grade will outperform a lazy stone at a premium one every time.
The trade off nobody explains
Cutters are paid by weight and the price list rewards round numbers. To cut well, they have to throw weight away. A one carat stone cut properly often started as rough that could have been sold at 1.15 carats cut badly. You are paying for that discipline.
Window and extinction
Tilt a stone. If you can see through the middle to your finger, that is a window, and it means the pavilion is too shallow. Large dead black patches mean it is too deep. Both are avoidable and both are common.
Why we recut
We buy stones other people gave up on and send them back to the wheel. Losing fifteen percent of the weight to gain a stone that lights up is an obviously good trade, and almost nobody in the trade makes it.