Our Grading System on Facet Rough

Using our extensive experience in sourcing, buying, sorting, grading and generally acquiring Top Grade Gemstones from miners, we have a full grading and evaluation system for all stones as they come in from the mines.

Correct grading of facet rough gemstones is the foundation on what our industry stands on.

Grading on faceting rough:

The terms Eye Clean and Slightly Included as well as Clean have and are being too loosely used in the industry. Many people throwing the word clean around not describing clean as clean flawless etc or eye clean! Lots of faceting rough dealers describing Eye Clean Stones as CLEAN not clarifying that they are indeed Eye Clean.

We set our own grading standard with millions of stones worth of experience in the industry and tens of thousands of customers that have been satisfied with the grading standard.

We have been grading faceting rough for decades and first started using the VVS etc system to grade in 2001.

This is our grading:

VVS-IF - meaning clean to flawless, we use this grading standard as it is the most precise.

VVS - will cut a VVS stone, no visible inclusions to the naked eye.

VS and VS-VVS - Eye clean with no visible inclusions to the unaided eye.

VS-Sl - Eye clean to slightly under eye clean.

Sl - slightly included but still can be faceted - Inclusions will not affect the clarity of the stone too much and may just be visible spots or strong needles or even a slightly stronger silk or a veil inclusion or a very slight crack that will be noticeable under a strong overhead light, but not stand out too much in the finished stone.

Included stone - has visible moderate to strong inclusions in it and may contain cracks, large spots, large crystal inclusions etc.

We have never understood the 90% clean... 80% clean... that dealers use, as it is too vague for us to describe facet rough with, does it mean that it is 10% or 20% included, wouldn't that fall in the Included range.. Just my thoughts.

Just to add that many dealers, right from the beginning, who used to travel to Arusha to buy from dealers and miners, have always asked why we grade using the VVS system as they were using the Clean to Eye clean, 80% clean etc. method to sell and would sell in lots, but from decades of experience, we found that the VVS system is more precise and an exact way of describing facet rough.

It seems the term 'clean' with some dealers depends very much on their point of view and level of experience.

We select through huge quantities of rough to bring you well graded top stones that we add on this website. 

Need more info or want to chat/tell us your thoughts. Feel free to contact us, we are available all the time and would love to hear from you. 

The gem community is a very small, fine knitted, closely connected, warm community built on trust and respect where relationships last a lifetime. 

Please feel free to reach out to us at any time with any queries.

Ali