To put more simply, the Cut, Polish and Symmetry of the diamond with a GIA certificate is Excellent, also called a Triple Ex in the trade. Some Companies may term these as being “True Hearts, Ideal Hearts, Super Hearts & Arrows or Super Ideal, but all these “marketing” terms end up with the GIA mentioning Excellent for Cut, Polish & Symmetry on their Certificate. We, at Marlows like to keep things simple and grade them as Hearts & Arrows which is the correct terminology without gimmicks, below which come our Ideal Cut which have a Cut Grade of Excellent and Polish & Symmetry of a minimum of Very Good.

Hearts and Arrows Diamonds are accurate and precision cut modules of the traditional 57 faceted round brilliant cut. This phenomenon was registered as a patent by Kinsaku Yamashita. The Japanese are known for being perfectionists and this entire process was developed initially by them. All polished round diamonds usually have some properties of the eight hearts and arrows but on most of these diamonds, they are not fully pronounced and visible. Diamonds which are cut to "ideal proportions" with perfect optical symmetry and a specific faceting pattern can achieve the status of a Hearts and Arrows Diamond. This results in a perfect pattern of eight symmetrical arrows when the diamond is viewed in the face up position and eight symmetrical hearts when it is viewed in the table down position as shown in the picture. So when you look through the top of this type of diamond you should be able to see the eight arrows an if you turn the diamond upside down and view from the bottom, you should be able to see the eight hearts through the diamond.

To see and confirm this hearts and arrows pattern in a diamond, one must use a specially designed light directing viewer called a Firescope which was developed by another Japanese Ken Shigetomi. The Hearts and Arrows Viewer is a rather simple device that allows the viewer to analyse the physical symmetry, contrast and alignment of facets of a diamond by viewing the stone through both the crown area and pavilion area of a diamond, by directing white and coloured light at set angles in order to catch and reflect light back from specific facets and angles of the diamond.

The first Hearts and Arrows diamonds surfaced in the mid 1980’s in Japan and embodied three important design factors. First, they have to be polished to “ideal proportions”, very close to those summarized by the most famous polisher of all time, Marcel Tolkowsky in his 1919 book, Diamond Design. Second, they needed to be cut with superior physical and optical symmetry so that they would garner a grade of Excellent Fire in the Japanese laboratories when the phenomenon started. The third and very important factor was that they were cut to a very specific brillianteering scheme to produce the accepted hearts and arrows pattern. This faceting scheme involves prescribed lengths and ratios as well as smaller tables sizes that are imperative in producing a distinctive, repeatable and gradable hearts and arrows pattern.

Less than 1% of gem rough crystals are pure enough to become a hearts and arrows diamond. Using 100 times magnification and analysis through all stages of production, the expertcutters create perfection at 10 times global standards for grading and evaluation.

A Hearts and Arrows Excellent cut diamond with excellent polish and symmetry takes up to four times longer to cut than other diamonds. The polisher and nowadays the rough diamond cutting software developer require additional expertise to prepare the rough diamond to be polished in such a way so that perfection is achieved. A Hearts and Arrows diamond is deemed to be more expensive than a normal brilliant cut diamond as the rough diamond loses more of its weight when polished to ideal proportions.

Marlows Diamonds are a firm believer of supplying the finest quality diamonds to the discerning consumer. Hence we have one of the largest stockholdings of Hearts & Arrows Diamonds in Birmingham in a variety of colours and clarities to choose from.