We often have people ask if Richard Homer can recut an existing stone into one of his incredible cuts.
Of course the answer is usually yes. On rare occasions he will tell us that the stone is not a good candidate for recutting, but almost always he is able to do it and with good results. We are going to let the pictures, and Richard tell most of the story here.
Below you will find pictures of a ring before we did the recut and after, and many pictures taken by Richard during the process. He decided to fully document this stone and to completely share with us the incredible changes that his cutting can make.
Here is Richard’s letter to our client that accompanied the stone with the pictures that he took of the stone both before and after. I have even left in what was intended as private humor, because it gives you a better flavor of who Richard is, and why he is such a joy to work with. Our client had been very nervous that the loss of weight would reduce the value of her stone. We think you will agree with us that the opposite was true, this is a much more valuable stone now than it ever was before.
Quote:
Everyone will be pleased to hear that the Sapphire recut was VERY successful. The gem was CONSIDERABLY improved in both beauty and value all the while diminishing face-up appearances of color zoning, excessive extinction, and reflective inclusions. My original estimation of weight loss was right on as well....20% with no loss in girdle dimensions....finished weight = 2.55ct. Man, I am good!!
It is interesting to note that the original native cutter supposed incorrectly that, by virtue of the gem's medium dark tone, he had to keep a massive amount of pavilion depth to retain the quality of color. As you can see in my microscope view of the pavilion(below, click on picture for larger photo), 
there is a large colorless color zone in the culet area. In my recut, I removed nearly a millimeter of that unnecessary colorless area to lay in facets that would properly reflect and blend the color banding that you see in this image. The net result is a more homogenous face-up color and one that is actually a bit more saturate. The gem's face-up color appears a bit darker in the image comparison but this is due mostly to the difference in lighting (note the backgrounds). The face-up color of the recut WAS improved and deepened in color by virtue of having closed the 30% window of the native cut...the true key color remains and is enhanced in the recut. It is truly a glorious gem now! And, now I think, truly worth the money that was paid for it. ( Wink, as a qualified appraiser, can judge for himself.) In the images, you can see as well, that I retained a goodly portion of the original pavilion bulge so that the color zoning could be best utilized and the resultant gem still nicely fit back into the original ring mounting without having to modify the gold.
Anyway, I have attached before and after images of the gem for your enjoyment. As you can imagine, I spent quite a lot of time doing all these photos, but, I went to such extra efforts because I knew the change would be wonderfully dramatic and I wanted to document that for you. Please share them with family and friends! I am looking forward to working with you again on another project.
Best regards,
Richard
(For larger views of these pictures, just click on the picture.)
