Hearts & Arrows
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Hearts and Arrows diamonds are round brilliants with special patterns visible under specific lighting conditions. They consist of eight hearts when viewed from the pavilion side and eight arrows when viewed from the crown side. Kinsaku Yamashita designed in 1988 an appropriate viewer (below) which creates the typical images illustrated on the right. The H&A pattern is very sensitive to symmetrical imperfections. Because of the high degree of symmetry and the limited proportion sets for which the patterns are visible a premium price is paid for H&A diamonds. The appearance of the pattern is a strong indicator of a top quality cut but there are varying degrees of the perfection and crispness of the H&A patterns.
The Hearts
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The pattern of eight hearts should be the same size,all clearly visible,sufficiently bright showing no colour with the overall pattern being uniform.
The shoulders of the hearts should be flattened.Pointed shoulders are a result of table size being greater than 60%.
The hearts should have symmetrical points.Asymmetrical points are a result of an offset between the left and right side of the hearts.
There should be a space between the heart and the v underneath the point of the heart, with all eight v's being well balanced.
The Arrows
The pattern of eight arrows should be the same size,all clearly visible,sufficiently bright showing no colour with the overall pattern being uniform.
The star shaped pattern in the centre ,formed at the base of the arrows shafts should not be too large, a consequence of this being arrows which are too short.It should also resemble a star shape and not have white areas that surround the shafts of the arrows, this will affect the star shape in the centre.
