WHEN A DIAMOND BECOMES A LETTER: THE ART OF THE UNUSUAL CUT

Diamonds Cut into Letters, Numbers and Symbols

A diamond cut into the shape of a letter. Not a letter set with diamonds — the diamond itself is the letter.

Perhaps you have already noticed them in my work, or perhaps not at all. Diamonds cut into letters, numbers and symbols are something I want to explore much further, so I thought it only fair to begin by explaining what they actually are and why I find them so fascinating.

At first glance, they look simple. A tiny diamond A, K, S or perhaps the number 7. But the more I learnt about how they are created, the more I realised just how extraordinary the craftsmanship behind them is. And that their value needs to be understood rather differently from that of a conventional diamond.

Diamond cutting is a highly specialised discipline in itself, but with shapes as unusual as these, it goes a step further. A cutter looks at a rough diamond and considers what it might become. What shape it has, where the inclusions lie, how the individual planes might run and how best to make use of the stone in front of him. Today, of course, modern technology can assist with this — a rough diamond can be scanned, a 3D model created and different cutting possibilities calculated. But someone still has to decide what to do with that particular stone. Not every rough diamond is suited to every finished shape.

And this is where the craft becomes truly fascinating to me. The Israeli cutter from whom these particular stones in my collection originate is able to see much of this simply with his own eyes. He looks at a rough diamond and, thanks to decades of experience — he himself comes from several generations of diamond cutters — can already envisage its future shape, its individual planes and where the facets might run. I find this absolutely ingenious. Technology may be able to measure a stone and calculate the possibilities, but that kind of spatial imagination, instinct for the material and knowledge passed down through generations cannot, in my view, be translated into a computer. I find the people behind this craft almost as fascinating as the diamonds themselves.

With letters, it becomes even more interesting. The proportions of one rough diamond might lend themselves beautifully to an A, while another might be better suited to an L or a J. The American jewellery brand K Kane describes the same principle with its Alphabet Diamonds — suitable rough stones are selected for individual letters, and their particular characteristics help determine what they can become.

And every unusual cut like this had to be conceived by someone in the first place. A letter, a number, a symbol… someone had to experiment with the arrangement of the individual planes and work out how to cut the stone so that the final shape actually worked. Every cutter had to arrive at a particular cut through experimentation, refine it and find a way to make it possible. There was no template or instruction manual.

Why can such a small diamond letter cost so much?

This is another part of the story that may not be immediately obvious. When you look at, say, a five-millimetre diamond letter, you only see the finished result. What you no longer see is the diamond it began as. That stone had to be larger, and part of the diamond material was removed during cutting. Exactly how much depends on the original stone, its shape and the letter we want to create. So we cannot simply say that every 5 mm letter, for example, began as a half-carat diamond. It may have started as a half-carat stone, but equally it could have come from a larger diamond, or from an unusually shaped rough stone that required considerably more material to be removed.

And this, I think, is where we need to look at these diamonds a little differently. We begin with valuable diamond rough and, rather than trying to preserve the largest possible visual size, deliberately cut part of it away in order to create a very specific shape. On top of the value of the diamond itself, there is of course the highly specialised work of the cutter who brings that shape to life. Individual letters will also appear very different — an I or a J will naturally look more delicate than an O, Q, H or M — so judging them purely by how large they appear at first glance makes very little sense.

And perhaps that is exactly why I find these cuts so appealing. A classic round white diamond is just that — a classic. It is beautiful, timeless and will probably never go out of style, but we have also seen it many, many times before. Unless it is exceptionally large, of remarkable quality or set in a particularly unusual way, it is difficult for it to truly surprise us anymore. These special cuts, to me, are for someone who is no longer simply chasing the largest possible diamond or the highest carat weight, but is looking for something original and unexpected — and is willing to sacrifice some of that precious rough in order to create, for example, a perfectly recognisable little A.

In America, diamond letters are already far better known

Here, diamonds cut into letters are still relatively unknown. In America, however, they are much more established and are sold at an entirely different price point. New York jewellery brand K Kane, for example, launched its Alphabet Diamonds collection in 2021. At the time, letters weighing approximately 0.25–0.30 ct were offered at $2,400 each, while those around half a carat were priced at $3,800. Today, its jewellery featuring diamond letters sells for several thousand dollars, with the price naturally increasing as more letters are added.

And they don't have to be white

Letters, numbers and symbols can, of course, also be cut from coloured diamonds. Here, pricing follows the usual principles of fancy colour diamonds. Some colours are more accessible, while others rank among the rarest diamonds in the world.

Brown and champagne diamonds, for example, are among the more common naturally coloured diamonds and tend to be less expensive. At the other end of the spectrum are rare natural pink, blue and green diamonds, which can command extraordinary prices. With yellow diamonds, much depends on the particular hue and intensity of the colour — so it is not true that every yellow diamond is automatically more expensive than a white one.

And this opens up an even more interesting possibility for me. Not simply choosing the letter or symbol, but also the diamond from which it will be created. White, black, champagne, yellow, pink… each will have an entirely different character.

This is a direction I want to explore much further

The longer I make jewellery, the more I am drawn to things that are not entirely ordinary. There is no shortage of beautiful jewellery or beautiful diamonds in the world, but finding something genuinely unique and unexpected today is surprisingly difficult. And that is precisely why I want to explore these special cuts much further. Letters are really only the beginning — they can become numbers, symbols or entirely different shapes. The possibilities are almost endless, and I cannot wait to bring more of them to you, my clients, because I know you come to me precisely because you are looking for something exceptional. ;)