I’d never heard of a diamond going into “surgery,” so when I was invited to watch a massive 5-carat pink diamond worth $3.2 million go under the knife (aka, diamond cutting wheel), I was more than a little curious.
“One wrong move and the stone could just shatter, then millions of dollars right down the drain,” Scott West tells me as he looks at a bright pink diamond in the palm of his hand.
The thought of shattering such a perfect gem makes me cringe, but Scott West knows what he’s doing. He and his dad, Larry West, are the father-son duo who run L.J. West Diamonds, a wholesale diamond house in New York City that’s been around for 41 years. The Wests are known as “diamantaires” in the industry, experts whose primary business is sourcing and cutting rare colored diamonds.
First a little back story on their pink rock…
“We purchased it at auction for $3.2 million, but we see the potential to add millions to its value,” says Scott.
When Scott and his dad shelled out all that cash, they were drawn to the rock because they knew they could unlock more value in the stone by cutting it. In fact, they specialize in cutting and shaving colored diamonds in ways that improve cut, clarity, and color. In essence, a new shape can help a stone better reflect light, which can enhance or magnify a diamond’s natural hue. In this case, they believe they can reshape this exotic pink rock to make it even more pink. They do it because a more intense pink color will make it even more valuable.
Scott says it’s pretty simple, “The more color the stone has, the more valuable it is.”
Read more about the $3.2 million dollar diamond and the surgery to make it more pink on the CNBC website HERE
