Hearts & Arrows Ideal Cut Diamonds & Wholesale Diamond Price Guides

Beyond the realms of Ideal proportions, lies the seemingly mythical world of "Hearts & Arrows" (pictured above) where prismatic brilliance flaunts itself brightly and draws you deep within like moth to a flame... Precisely aligned and carefully shaped facets combine with optimum proportions to produce a beautiful pattern of Hearts & Arrows that seems to feed the soul and tantalize the senses... Although we do not feel that the presence of a crisp and complete Hearts & Arrows pattern adds anything to the visual properties of a diamond in terms of brilliance, dispersion or scintillation, those cute little hearts can add a little mental boost in the romance department if you're smart enough to give each of them a "special meaning" that is specific to your relationship. Hey, if all else fails and you can't think of eight special meanings, there is something "memorable" that you've done at least eight times, right?

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The pictures shown above are actual representations of a top and bottom view of a "Hearts & Arrows" diamond. They are not computer images or drawings. There is nothing mythical nor make believe about "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds... They exist and we think that those hearts are a wondrous sight to see through a scope, no matter how much some jewelers still try to deny their existence, or try to convince you that the "Hearts & Arrows" phenomena is merely smoke and mirrors. The fact of the matter is that "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds have been the focus of numerous articles in National Jeweler Magazine and Modern Jeweler Magazine and Jewelers Circular Keystone Magazine and are sold by several diamond brokerages under a variety of brand names (a concept that we'll discuss further down).

Are they "The Most Beautiful" diamond available on the market today?

Well, they were for a time... Up until a few years ago when they were pretty much the only option available in terms of truly well crafted ideal cut diamonds. However the reality is that the producers of ideal cut diamonds who were skilled enough to do so, strove to copy the "formula" created by the Japanese for maximizing the brilliance and dispersion of a diamond that is used by the cutters that produce diamonds that exhibit the Hearts & Arrows effects... The end result has created widespread improvement of the ideal cut diamond as we know it in our industry and the emergence of what we refer to as "Super Ideal". We are no longer able to detect a visual distinction between ideal cut diamonds that exhibit a precise pattern of hearts and arrows and those that do not, providing that certain combinations of degrees and angles remain within precise tolerances. This is not to say that all ideal cut diamonds exhibit visual properties equal to, or better, than Hearts & Arrows diamonds... Only that many do. Our focus when selecting diamonds for our inventory is no longer based on whether a diamond exhibits a pattern or not, but rather whether or not the diamond exhibits a high level of brilliance, dispersion and scintillation and the key factor to this regard is the actual proportions of the diamond and not the presence or absence of a pattern.

In plain English, the presence of a Hearts & Arrows pattern is not the indicator of brilliance, dispersion or scintillation that it used to be. Many of the super ideal cut diamonds available on the market today, rival and often exceed the visual properties of the Hearts & Arrows diamonds that we see in the current market. Some of the super ideal cut diamonds even exhibit patterns that are very close to being perfect Hearts & Arrows, which we now consider to be nothing more than an added bonus... So don't be lured into the concept that your diamond has to exhibit an internal pattern of hearts and arrows to be the best, the harsh reality is that the pattern will no longer be visible once the diamond is mounted - after all, the big "Wow" factor is the hearts which appear on the bottom of the stone and they will be hidden by the prongs once the stone is set.

Because so many of the Super Ideal Cut Diamonds available on the market today, rival the beauty and visual performance that was previously only available from true Hearts & Arrows stones (but without the added premium) we urge you to keep an open mind as to the presence or lack of a pattern, and allow us to assist you in selecting your diamond based on the visual performance of the diamond and not necessarily the presence of a pattern. In other words, if there are two or three diamonds in our live inventory with comparable characteristics (carat weight, color, clarity) we suggest that you ask us to compare them for you so that we may help you select the best of the group based on the actual visual performance... Our Top Secret Procedure for doing so involves... Wait! What are we thinking... We will never disclose our secret process for determining the champion puppy in a comparison to the Infidel Bottom Feeders that steal our concepts and copy us! We will take it to our death! But have no fear, we can tell you which diamond in a comparison is the prettiest and pumps out the most awesome light! As for our procedure, did you miss it? It's a secret. But we will tell you that since we own our exclusive inventory and each stone in a given weight category has the same profit structure, we have no need to sell one diamond over another, and thus can provide you with an honest, unbiased evaluation of the diamonds being considered...

98% of a diamond's visual performance is controlled by it's cut.

Aside from the fact that the "Hearts & Arrows" pattern is very cool what truly "made" these diamonds remarkable when they first emerged on the market many years ago, was the amount of light return that they produced. Precise alignment of the facets and careful attention to the crown and pavilion angles of a "Hearts & Arrows" diamond resulted in maximum light return. A few years ago, this type of "balanced" brilliance and dispersion with a high degree of scintillation was only available from Hearts & Arrows diamonds, but in recent years the producers of the super ideal cut diamonds that we work with have fine tuned their production to deliver similar results without the added expense demanded by the increased time it takes to produce a crisp pattern of hearts and arrows. In fact, we can no longer tell the difference between our Super Ideal and Hearts & Arrows Ideal Cut Diamonds without using a special scope. This is not necessarily true of "all ideal cut diamonds" so please understand that we are not making a blanket statement of equality amongst ideal cuts... We very carefully hand select our diamonds using a very strict and precise set of parameters yet still some are brighter than others (if that doesn't blow your mind we don't know what will). Many of the "hearts and arrows" and ideal cut diamonds sent to us for evaluation are returned to the cutters for failing to impress us.

How do you know that we represent the very best?

Because we "cherry pick" the inventory of our suppliers after the GIA and AGS have done their work... We do more than simply listing ideal cut diamonds for sale... We hand select our exclusive inventory with careful attention to detail... We begin by sorting through the diamonds offered to us by our suppliers from a paper perspective, weeding out and eliminating the "weaker ideal cuts" and those containing undesirable inclusion types and formations from the possibilities... Then the remaining candidates (not many after we're through with the list) are sent to us for further evaluation... Each diamond is then evaluated for brilliance, dispersion and scintillation... The inclusions of each diamond are evaluated using high magnification... Diamonds surviving our intense physical evaluation process are then placed for adoption on our Private Reserve. The rest are returned to the cutter where they will be sold to our less discriminating competitors.

Many people do not realize the depth of our commitment to quality until we embark on a search for a specific diamond for them and they get to see our evaluation process first hand... Awhile back one of our clients asked us to help him find a three carat, H, SI-1 ideal cut diamond. It took several weeks for one meeting our initial selection criteria to surface in the market... We discussed the paper aspects of the diamond with Tom and he was quite excited... We brought the diamond in for physical evaluation and contacted Tom to let him know that we were returning the diamond to the cutter because it lacked the brilliance and dispersion that we crave... To put it simply, Tom was stunned... He actually began to argue with us "but the proportions are perfect!" and "but, but, but, she'll kill me! She's been waiting for weeks!" Eventually Tom came to the conclusion that something must be up if we weren't willing to sell him the stone... A few weeks later, another possibility emerged... Again, everything looked fantastic on paper, but we disagreed with the clarity grade assigned to the diamond feeling that it was too weak... The fact of the matter is that we will not sell a diamond if we disagree with the characteristics stated on the diamond grading report unless it is to your benefit... By this time Tom was in shock... Fortunately a few days later another "possibility" appeared and it met all of our selection criteria... The diamond was simply magnificent and we couldn't wait to call him because we knew that his anniversary was just around the corner and that if he didn't produce "the diamond" that his ass-was-grass... He'd told us previously that she was revving up the lawn mower... As you might be able to imagine, the diamonds that actually make it on to our Private Reserve receive this type of consideration so that we may be confident that we are offering our clients the very best that we can possibly find... Some of the diamonds listed in our Private Reserve are obviously going to be prettier than others and that is why you should use our minds and eyes... Note that due to recent laws pertaining to the internet, those are the only body part that you can play with here at NiceIce.

A glimpse into how it works...

A diamond's "crown" [the top half of the stone] controls it's fire which is the dispersion of prismatic color that emerges from a diamond... A diamond's "pavilion" [the bottom half of the stone] controls it's brilliance [reflected white light]. The symmetry and alignment of a diamond's facets are what control scintillation which is the movement of light inside of the diamond... the inside of a diamond is similar to a hall of mirrors and if cut properly those "mirrors" reflect the light back at you... Depending how the diamond was cut, the shape of the diamond may be out of round, the facets might be misshapen or irregular in size, might fail to point towards one another, or might not align properly with the facets directly opposite of each other... Such discrepancies in a diamond's cut results in light "leaking" out of the diamond.

	When we first introduced "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds to the American market many years ago, this is the pattern that could be seen in most of the ideal cut diamonds that were available on the market when the diamond was evaluated through a Gems Fantasy Scope. Today most ideal cut diamonds exhibit some sort of a pattern of hearts and arrows, but many exhibit patterns that are distorted or incomplete and are thus not listed in our Private Reserve as exhibiting a pattern...

The white and aqua blue wisps seen around the edge of the diamond pictured above represent the amount of light that is "leaking" from the stone... Tighter proportions and precise symmetry reduce the amount of light that leaks from a diamond... We hand select our diamonds very carefully to maximize light return and reject those that do not, returning them to the cutter where they will be sold to other vendors with less precise selection criteria...

	Notice how this top view of the arrows pattern within a "Hearts & Arrows" diamond does not exhibit the white and aqua blue wisps seen in the ideal cut pictured above...
	The same absence of white and aqua blue wisps is seen here in this bottom view of a "Hearts & Arrows" diamond...

The "Hearts & Arrows" pattern is the result of precise facet alignment and careful attention to the crown and pavilion angles. All of the diamond's bezel, star, upper girdle, lower girdle, and pavilion main facets must essentially be the same size and shape [per section and type] and must be aligned precisely 180° degrees opposite of each other or the "H&A" pattern will be incomplete, misaligned, faded or distorted in it's appearance.

	Now this is a picture of one of our Super Ideal Cut diamonds as seen through the desktop lab scope that we use for evaluating patterns here in our office... More on that in a moment... Notice that there is an arrows pattern... However, this particular diamond does not meet our criteria for "Hearts & Arrows" because of the variation in the size and shape of the arrows and the extent of the shading which can be seen in some of the arrow shafts, tips, and tines "combined" with the distortion of the hearts pattern that we will be discussing below...

Now the diamond pictured above looked pretty good through a handheld Gems Fantasy Scope... It wasn't until we placed him under "the Monster" that we were able to distinguish the variations in the arrows pattern. Why? Because "the Monster" allowed us to view the diamond at the size of a Texas Grapefruit with the benefit of a targeted light source. We feel that it is important to note that "the Monster" is not the standard GIA Gem Scope that most us use for grading the clarity characteristics of a diamond... It is a special lab quality gem scope designed by the Japanese for grading the perfection of Hearts & Arrows patterns. It serves no other purpose. It took us quite awhile to get our hands on it and there are days when we wished we never had because it enables us to see far too much, but at least now we can understand the extent of the Japanese grading scale. Awhile ago we got into a debate with a supplier that kept insisting that his diamonds were "Hearts & Arrows" and we kept sending him pictures pointing out why they weren't. His eventual and final response was to exasperate that he was thankful that the rest of his stateside customers were too cheap to spend their money on such a scope! He now refers to his diamonds as ideal cuts when offering them to us... Proof that men are trainable.

	This is the bottom side of the Super Ideal Cut Diamond that we showed you the arrows pattern of previously. Although a pattern of hearts is visible, the pattern is inconsistent to a degree that causes us to reject the diamond as Hearts & Arrows and represent it as merely ideal. Does this inconsistency of the hearts pattern have a negative effect on the beauty of this diamond? Not in the slightest, in fact it is visibly more brilliant and dispersive than many of the H&A diamonds in our inventory. We remind you that each stone must be considered on it's own merits...

	Here is a top side view of another "Super Ideal" cut diamond from our inventory. This particular diamond exhibits a strong arrows pattern that is near perfect and certainly stronger than the arrows pattern pictured above. The subtle shading of some of the arrow shafts and tips prevent the diamond from being considered as a true Hearts & Arrows diamond, however in this particular instance it was not detracting from the visual performance of the diamond. Here again, the shading of the pattern was not visible through the handheld Gems Fantasy Scope and did not become apparent to us until we evaluated this puppy under "the Monster".
	This is a bottom view of the Hearts pattern exhibited within this "Super Ideal" cut diamond. While the hearts pattern is certainly much better than the one pictured in the other Super Ideal cut diamond noted above, there is a slight variation in the size and shape of the hearts and some subtle shading which results representing the diamond has having a Hearts & Arrows Effect despite the fact that it looked "perfect" through the handheld Gems Fantasy Scope. Note that our rating of the pattern has nothing to do with the polish and symmetry of the stone which is GIA Excellent.

	The Hearts & Arrows pattern of this Super Ideal cut diamond is near perfect. In fact, the pattern is extremely close to being perfect. When viewed through the handheld Gems Fantasy Scope (which many dealers photograph their patterns through) it even looks perfect, but the subtle shadowing of the tip of the arrow in the three o'clock position that became visible when this diamond was viewed through "the Monster" caused us to grade this stone as having an "effect" but not a rated H&A pattern.
	This is the Hearts pattern exhibited by this diamond. It is also near perfect. But look very hard at the heart in the five o'clock position in comparison to the others... Now look at the one in the eight o'clock position... Can you see the slight variance in size and shape? Subtle... Very subtle without a doubt. But it is our attention to such detail that we believe sets us apart from other dealers. Yes we know that our release of "the Monster" upon the trade is cruel. Godzilla lives!

The "Brand" does not make the diamond...
It merely identifies the company reselling the stone.

To the best of our knowledge, there were only a few diamond cutting companies in the world capable of producing what we consider to be true "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds and we purchase diamonds direct from many of them. All of them are located in either Israel or Belgium and until a few years ago all distribution was limited to Japan. When the Yen collapsed, these diamond cutters offered their production to a handful of companies in the United States who now market them under a variety of brand names in an attempt to appear to be offering an exclusive product that is not available from any other source...

"Brand" does not make a Hearts & Arrows diamond, especially when most of the "brands" are sourced from the same suppliers and "re-packaged" under the brand name... Regardless of "the brand" each diamond must be evaluated on its own merits and not on the "word" of the seller, the "reputation" of the company or brand, or a generic photograph that is being used for all of the stones in their inventory. We have evaluated several diamonds from each "brand" and have determined that each diamond must be considered individually upon it's own merits without consideration for the brand name because many of the brands lack consistency and rely heavily on advertising to create consumer confidence rather than consistent quality. This is because we've seen inconsistencies within each brand where sometimes the diamond is beautiful and exhibits a very nice pattern and other times it does not yet the diamonds are always marketed as Hearts & Arrows. This concept is true of any branded item that is mass produced and marketed, if you think of it in terms of automobiles we're sure that you'll agree.

In case you didn't catch the "brand" concept in the preceding paragraph, the "key phrase" in that last paragraph was "a handful of companies that now market them under a variety of brand names". Surf the web and you will find several companies marketing diamonds that exhibit the same pattern pictured at the top of this page under various brand names. Many of them claim to be the only sellers of this type of merchandise and that only their brand exhibit a true "H&A" pattern. Some have even changed the blue images in these photographs to red using Photoshop but the image itself is unchanged with the exception of its color. Some even claim to cut the goods themselves when we know for a fact that they are buying from the same suppliers that we buy from. This became apparent to us when (1) they couldn't explain how to cut a stone to us; and (2) didn't understand our demand for precise proportions with regards to crispness of pattern; and (3) were confused when we told them how these things "tick"; and (4) wouldn't allow us to watch them cut a stone despite the fact that they had a (rather clean) diamond cutting wheel in their office; and (5) they were offering us diamonds that we'd seen previously on the list of another supplier at considerably better prices. Enough said. You don't even want us to go there. Regardless of the brand name, the most important factor is whether the pattern is crisp and complete [symmetrical and vivid]. The reality is that most of us are all buying them from the same companies and are merely marketing them under our own labels. Who are those companies? Now, you know that we can't mention that for legal reasons. Don't ask, you'll just get a generic "they're a very fine brand" type of answer from us because "they're a very fine brand of diamond"... Get it?

Although we have registered a trademark (H~A)²™ for our "brand" of "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds, we are not interested in building a nationally recognized brand name in the traditional sense of the word... Merely protecting our right to discuss Hearts & Arrows diamonds in a language reserved for our "brand" because there was a time when the U.S. Market was fighting over the terms used to represent diamonds that exhibit patterns of Hearts & Arrows. Thus we refer to our "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds as "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds not "Brand-X" or "Brand-Y" or even (H~A)²™ because building a "household" brand name costs $$$ BIG MONEY that we thought you would rather spend on a bigger, brighter, whiter diamond rather than our advertising budget. If you think that we're kidding, compare the prices [and patterns] of those name brand "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds to our "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds and you'll get a feel for how much money it costs to build a brand. You can pay for the name, or you can pay for the diamond, the choice is yours. We figure that our brand name of (H~A)²™ will build itself over time by word of mouth.

Calling it "Hearts & Arrows" does not necessarily make it so...

Do we even need to explain this? Think of the last experience you had on a car lot. Okay, for the numb at heart... As the popularity of Hearts & Arrows diamonds grew in the market a few years ago, a few idiots got it in their heads that any diamond with ideal proportions graded by AGS as having an overall cut grade of AGS Ideal-0 (AGS-000 by slang terms) was automatically Hearts & Arrows. The same apparently is true of any ideal cut diamond graded by the GIA as having Excellent polish and symmetry. Boy, did these guys miss the boat! It has taken us two years to get some of the cutting houses to grasp the concept that AGS-000, AGS-0000 and GIA EX EX, does not mean that the diamond exhibits a crisp and complete pattern of Hearts & Arrows! Now, get ready to pick yourself up off of the floor... Most of them didn't even have a Gems Fantasy Scope and didn't even know what one was. Yet they were convinced that there was a pattern in their diamonds (because they needed it to be for marketing purposes) and knew that most consumers do not have access to a scope and thus wouldn't know the difference... We're still irritated about this. And we still see diamonds represented as "Hearts & Arrows" with proportions that we know make it impossible for a crisp and complete pattern to emerge.

We are frequently contacted by manufacturers of ideal cut diamonds who proudly announce that they can now supply us with the "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds that we need. Out of respect and a great deal of hope, we ask them to send a selection of these diamonds to us for evaluation. We have yet to have even one of our thirty suppliers of ideal cut diamonds produce a single diamond that exhibits a pattern of hearts and arrows crisp enough to deserve comparison to those manufactured by the original five cutting houses. However, these pseudo hearts and arrows diamonds make absolutely wonderful ideal cut diamonds and we are proud to represent them as Super Ideal Cut Diamonds in our Private Reserve and will display the photographs of any discernable pattern when present.

Diamonds that exhibit a partial Hearts & Arrows pattern, or a pattern that is not crisp, and which can only be seen if you move your head from side to side or in a circle while you look at the diamond through a refractive scope are NOT considered to be true "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds by those people in the industry who know better... Other tell tale signs of a want-to-be "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds are tips of arrows that bend a little to the right or left... hearts that are irregular in size or shape... arrows that are faded, or extremely thin or thick, or which vary in length and width... Shorter patterns that are located deeper in the diamond (around the middle) rather than emerging from the upper portion of the diamond and extending towards the edge of the stone are also not acceptable.

A true "Hearts & Arrows" pattern does not resemble Salvador Dali's surrealistic painting "Chromosome of a Highly Colored Fish's Eye" where everything is distorted and melting together. The "Hearts & Arrows" pattern is supposed to be complete, exceptionally crisp, and immediately visible when the diamond is viewed under a refractive scope. We sometimes refer to diamonds that exhibit partial, weak, or slightly distorted patterns as those that are "trying to be Hearts & Arrows". They should not, however, be represented as "Hearts & Arrows" and would not receive the "Hearts & Arrows - Excellent" rating by the laboratories in Japan and Israel.

We are connoisseurs of fine make and have specialized in ideal cut diamonds for years. While many companies sell everything that qualifies as a diamond, we sell only round brilliant ideal cut diamonds and focus all of our efforts examining and hand selecting every "Hearts & Arrows" and Super Ideal Cut diamond that we sell so that you are guaranteed of the highest quality.

The Most Brilliant Diamond your "Luv-Bunny" ever sees
Should be on her hand...
So be a Good Boy and Fetch one of the Puppies on our Private Reserve

You won't be sorry. We hand select our exclusive inventory for maximum visual effect. They are truly orgasmic and guaranteed to make your kitty purr and purr and purr... They are significantly brighter and much more brilliant than standard round brilliant cut diamonds and all of your friends will stare in amazement when presented with "The Rock" whether you're in a brilliantly lit restaurant, or at home in the garage or kitchen. And that's the real test because believe it when we tell you that any diamond looks good under 300 watt halogen diamond lights. The real test of a diamond's brilliance is how beautiful it is when you get it home and examine it in the real world!

Every one of our (H~A)^2™ Hearts & Arrows and Super Ideal Cut Diamonds is an exceptional combination of math and physics resulting in facets cut with precisely defined angles and proportions that create remarkable spectral light shows. Regardless of whether you select a diamond that exhibits this very cool pattern or one that does not, we guarantee your satisfaction and look forward to helping you select a very special diamond of dynamic proportions!

(H~A)^2™and Hand Selected Super Ideal Cut Diamonds
When Nothing Short of Perfection Will Do...
The Private Reserve of NiceIce

May we help you find the diamond of your dreams?
Send us an email diamonds@niceice.com and tell us what you are looking for.
Or give us a call at 206.319.8152 or Toll Free 877.844.5443

AGS® is a registered trademark of the American Gem Society (702) 255-6500
GIA® is a registered trademark of the Gemological Institute of America (760) 603-4000

Not all "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds are created equal... A clarification on the realm of "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds in the current market...

Are they "The Most Beautiful" diamond available on the market today?

98% of a diamond's visual performance is controlled by it's cut.

How do you know that we represent the very best?

A glimpse into how it works...

The "Brand" does not make the diamond... It merely identifies the company reselling the stone.

Calling it "Hearts & Arrows" does not necessarily make it so...

The Most Brilliant Diamond your "Luv-Bunny" ever sees Should be on her hand... So be a Good Boy and Fetch one of the Puppies on our Private Reserve

(H~A)2™ and Hand Selected Super Ideal Cut Diamonds When Nothing Short of Perfection Will Do... The Private Reserve of NiceIce

May we help you find the diamond of your dreams? Send us an email diamonds@niceice.com and tell us what you are looking for. Or give us a call at 206.319.8152 or Toll Free 877.844.5443

Not all "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds are created equal...
A clarification on the realm of "Hearts & Arrows" diamonds in the current market...

The "Brand" does not make the diamond...
It merely identifies the company reselling the stone.

The Most Brilliant Diamond your "Luv-Bunny" ever sees
Should be on her hand...
So be a Good Boy and Fetch one of the Puppies on our Private Reserve

(H~A)^2™and Hand Selected Super Ideal Cut Diamonds
When Nothing Short of Perfection Will Do...
The Private Reserve of NiceIce

May we help you find the diamond of your dreams?
Send us an email diamonds@niceice.com and tell us what you are looking for.
Or give us a call at 206.319.8152 or Toll Free 877.844.5443