Why we still grade by hand

Every stone we sell is independently certified by a major laboratory. And every stone we sell is also looked at, slowly, by someone in our family. Those two facts are not in tension — they are the whole method.

What the lab settles

A modern report fixes the things that must be objective: the colour grade, the colour origin, the measurements, the clarity. We would not trade a serious colour stone without one, and we never ask a client to. The certificate is the floor.

What it leaves open

What a report cannot capture is performance. Two diamonds can share a grade — "Fancy Vivid Yellow," say — and behave completely differently in the hand: one alive across the whole stone, the other strong only at the centre; one steady from daylight to candlelight, the other flat once the light changes. Colour is seen, not measured, and seeing is a human skill.

How we actually look

• In several lights — daylight, shade and warm indoor light, because colour shifts in each.
• Face-up and tilted — to judge how evenly the colour carries to the edges.
• Against skin — a stone is worn, not stored, and warm tones change how a hue reads.

A grade tells you what a stone is. The eye tells you whether it is good.

That second judgement, built over three generations of doing little else, is what we add on top of the lab report — and it is why our clients let us choose on their behalf.