Show THE DIAMONDS VALUE It Depend More Upon the Cutting Than ITpon the Sine The first point to be considered about a diamond is its fire said Mr Charles 1C Giles H by which I mean its reflected liirht its brilliancy The white and bluishwhite diamonds are the most expensive ex-pensive and the steelwhite are the sharpest The latter has a kind of hard lightbrownish lock just like newly broken steel They are all kinds of shades In fact they are innumerable since no two stones are exactly alike in color The bluishwhite is the costliest because the rarest outside of the decidedly de-cidedly brown diamonds which are very rare very hard and very brilliant and which a good fancier will prefer to any other except the bluishwhite Then there are the slightly brownish the slightly yellow the straw rnW L thn greenish yellow the rose color and Ot tlu 111 canary yellow The greenishyellow arc the least desirable but even a little tinge of yellow not noticeable to the purchaser pur-chaser except by comparison with others will bring down the price of a stone one half to onequarter You see those two sparklers for instance and Mr Giles exhibited two beautifully brilliant stones intended for eardrops H Well they are only worth 500 because they are a little off what we call bywater If of a fine bluishwhite they would be worth 2000 The socalled rosecolored stones wInch some ignorant i people suppose to be very valuable are only the result of their being cut flat such stones being generally the clearing from larger stones the refuse so to speak Now as to shape there are different opinions Some pre fer the cushion shape and others the round shape The latter is an American invention and is at present the most popular shape The cushion shape is of English taste The old Dutch stones cut in Amsterdam are getting out of date in this country at least You see there in Amsterdam the dealers buy the rough diamonds by the bagful just as they come from the mines and they have a system of exchanging cut stones for rough stones 500 carats of rough for 300 carats of cut ones for instance in-stance so that it is to their interest lose as little of the stones weight as possible in the cutting process Here things are quite different We are just now recutting a good many of these old Dutch stones Here is one you see and the expert unwrapped un-wrapped a very fine stone which weighed 9 1G4 carats when it went upstairs up-stairs to our cutters and which now weighs but 76 carats Yet its value has been increased by this procedure although al-though its size is diminished so that it is now worth 2500 while before that it was worth but 2000 There is a great deal in the cutting of a stone The old English singlecut where only one side had facets while the lower one was left in straight lines is out of demand now A stone is cut in proportion to its shape and size there being valuable stones of all numbers of facets You see there is a grain to a diamond just as much as there is to a slab oi wood An expert diamondcutter will see that grain and cut the diamond accordingly The shape of the stone must be made so that the angles throw the greatest amount of light toward the gazer Some stones have their angles cut so that the rays of light converge before they reach the eye That is a point which even a great many experts ex-perts overlook in purchasing They will hold the stone six inches from their eyes instead of looking at it from a distance And yet the latter is the proper way for diamonds are intended to show brilliancy from some distance C Where are the largest diamonds found just now In Southern Africa The mines there are however pretty old too and are getting fairly exhausted I think that among our undeveloped resources re-sources in the United States diamonds will loom up largely before long The other day I bought a 17carat stone of a man who had bought it for 1 taking it to be a topaz It was found near Waukesha Wau-kesha Wisconsin It had much the appearance ap-pearance of the South African stones Two or three months ago a party brought me one from Central Iowa It was avery a-very good stone and I should say that there must be more where that came from I believe there are many spots in this country where diamonds are to be found Only when found the general public wouldnt know them from rough diamonds How does a rough diamond look Generally it is a little sixpointed crystal or it may look like a roundish semitransparent pebble In its rough state it generally doesnt look as pretty as a piece of quartz The opinion of experts ex-perts ought to be had whenever stones are found suspected to be diamonds Search besides ought to be made not by individuals but by communities for diamonds dia-monds are scarce wherever they are lodged and many eyes looking for them are more likely to find them than one pair however keen What qualifications must a good expert ex-pert in diamonds possess Experience A judge of these stones must have a constant experience in order to enable him to adjust properly and recognize rec-ognize the various points that give a diamond dia-mond its value shape cut and color Not one in a thousand knows enough about diamonds to tell if a diamond is worth 1000 or 200 There are very few experts There are of course quite a number of them among the dealers but very few outside of them The value of a stone depends of course after all a good deal on individual tastes and prejudices and really its market price is governed more by its relative rel-ative scarcity than by anything else If for instance some prolific mines were discovered now yielding lots of bluish white diamonds they would decline in price and those of color the yellowish 10 and brownish ones would rise Only cent of the diamonds found are worthy per to be set in jewelry you know The rest are refuse stones which are brought up by sharp dealers who palm them off afterward on an unsuspecting bargains Lots of men as great public are taken in in that way People think that they have struck a good thing and will keep quiet about where they bought it and how much they paid for it If they went to an honest expert he would point out to them the flaws in the stones they that so cheap and show them purchased swindled Diamonds have they had been market price and if they are always good marketable a stones no dealer will sell them below the market figure Chicago News |