Old stones are typically not white.
That is because most of the white stones we get in the market today come from Southern Africa - Angola, Botswana, Sierra Leone - and those mines didn't exist then. The older, yellow looking old cuts Stones were coming from Brazil and Venezuela.
Old stones face whiter than modern cuts. As a general rule old stones face one
or two color grades whiter. Because of their open culet, color is not trapped in the stone.
Old Mine Cuts
- Look More Square!
- Heavy crown
- Very large Open culet
- Very deep bottom
- Very small table
- Heavy, clunky look, facets not uniform
Old mine cuts were a product of the technology of the time. The diamonds, cut without the advantage of motorized machinery, followed the rough diamond's octahedral shape.
Until the late 1800s, this created mostly square or rectangular cushion-shaped diamonds. The shape of the old stones of that time was not uniform at all, even thought they have the same number of facets, 58, as the modern round brilliant.
Old Euro Cuts
- ROUND LOOK
- Open culet, but smaller than the old miner
- Very small table
- More even facets on the pavilion
- Bottom half is short
In the 1900s, with the advent of motorized machinery, more evenly cut diamonds arose. It bridged the roundish old mine cut and the modern round of today. The main the difference between the cuts can be seen on the back facets. On the old European, they radiate out from a large culet pretty much evenly, like a pie would be, whereas the old miner has rays and then kite facets coming off the culet.