The Amora Blog...the Amora Gem Chapter
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Thanks for the highly anticipated monthly update, Les! So exciting!! I'm very happy for you and now that things are looking up. Keep up the good work. I'll be lurking and eagerly looking forward to reading new and exciting news. I am looking for the day when Amoras will be readily available like the Asha stones are. Happy New Years, Les and to your hard working employees!!
Hi all,
Happy Friday! A bigger update this month with lot's to discuss so please get comfortable, grab a drink and let's get underway!
Amora Gem Updates:
Another weekly production record: We're continuing to improve our weekly production and broke the record set last month, with a new record this month. That said, we did have TIGER-1 breakdown 2x (one due to metal failure, another to computer failure). However, in both cases we were able to fix and restore production within 2 days and we've also started stocking a lot more 'likely to need' parts to ensure that we have a good shot of fixing any breakdowns same day.
So ultimately we are increasing both volume and robustness of our TIGER cut Amora Gem production.
More E color, more Internally Flawless: We've seen a steady trend in the color grades with our new rough. Multiple restocks were over 60% E color (some as high as 90%!). Similarly, we've seen a big spike in clarity with Internally Flawless Amora's sometimes being more than 50% of a weekly restock. Almost every single Amora Gem this month was colorless (D/E/F).
Out of 7.5mm rough, but no more waiting list for 7.5mm: The bulk of our production in February was 7.5mm. As a result I'm very happy to announce that as of tonight we have 0 people on the waiting list for colorless 7.5mm!
No coincidence but we're also out of 7.5mm rough now since we've produced a number of them, so we won't have any more 7.5mm restocks for another two months or so, but it was really nice to finally see one size's wait list drop to 0.
And I'm also happy to note, we have live inventory now of 7.5mm!
Amora Gem Inventory
High demand for 9mm, Upcoming sizes include more 9mm and even 10mm! We've had a big jump in demand for larger (8mm, 8.5mm, 9mm) Soaring Hearts Eternity's. As a result, we've been increasing production now of 9mm and even have some 10mm that will start production on Saturday.
The 9mm's have sold out incredibly fast after each restock, sometimes as fast as 10 minutes, so we are going to be very focused on the larger sizes over the next few months.
Soaring Hearts Eternity - studio photo! With production growing and waiting lists being steadily reduced, we've finally been able to start working on more typical things like photo's and video's. I'm thus happy to show our first studio photo of the Soaring Hearts Eternity! This is a 2.90ct (9mm) E/IF Soaring Hearts Eternity:
The Soaring Hearts Eternity- the only diamond alternative with a faceted girdle. Jonathan's review: Jonathan from Good Old Gold has released his final episode of the Soaring Hearts Eternity review. This last episode reviews the Soaring Hearts girdle, discusses how and why diamonds came to have girdles, and how Amora is the only diamond alternative offering the same type of girdle on H&A diamonds:
Thanks very much to Jonathan for the video review!
Saturated Blue Amora Gem rough! We will be cutting some new rough in the next two weeks that is a much richer blue color. These will yield 8mm and the hope is these will be Fancy Intense Blue on the GIA blue diamond scale. In other words, a rich blue that is obviously blue vs. the prior rough yielded mostly white color with a faint hint of blue
Here's a quick photo of the new rough and a comparison of the previous rough so you can see the immediate improvement in depth of blue color:
compared to last month's rough:
TIGER-2 update: We're currently cutting test stones with TIGER-2 and hope to have it fully certified and ready to move to production within the next two weeks. We found a few alignment issues and also software issues (due to lower weight of the new arms) that had to be fixed so that was the main delay but plan to have it in production this month. We'll thus be making some design changes for TIGER-4+ as we continue to improve the TIGER robot line.
TIGER-3 we are hoping to finish and get into production by late April.
TIGER-5 and AVC/Krupps: After reviewing our production and robot expansion plans, we have decided that we'll be dedicating new TIGER's completing this summer to be dedicated to various cuts. Thus, TIGER-1 - TIGER-4 will be be for Soaring Hearts. TIGER-5 will be dedicated to AVC and Krupps and TIGER-6 will be dedicated to likely Cushion cuts.
Soaring Hearts Eternity Studio video! I saved perhaps the best for last but we've also got our first studio video of a Soaring Hearts Eternity. 2.90ct, E/IF. Note that due to Soaring Hearts being optimized for 'stereoscopic' viewing (aka real life) vs. videos are made with monoscopic cameras we're not really capturing the full extent but regardless wanted to show a first video since 3D camera's aren't readily available
Misc:
What material is harder than diamond? This question was asked on Quora so I answered but thought the info might be of interest to readers. While the generic answer is that diamonds are the hardest material, there are actually two other crystals that are harder than diamond. They are both extremely rare though.
Here are the two known crystals harder than diamond:
1 - Lonsdaleite (hexagonal diamond) is 57% stronger with 152 GPa.
2 - wurtzite Boron Nitride is 18% stronger with 114 GPa.
These are the main two that have been shown to be stronger/harder than diamond.
Diamond is 97 GPa for reference.
Both of these require a step of high pressure to force the atoms into their strongest position (just like diamond is formed in high pressure). Lonsdaleite is commonly formed in meteor strikes where the collision provides the pressure, and wurtzite Boron Nitride is formed during volcanic eruptions.
“When extreme pressures are applied to lonsdaleite and another material called wurtzite boron nitride using a two stage shear deformation, they flip their atomic bonds resulting in significantly stronger materials than the unpressurized materials. Both are stronger than diamond in this pressurized state; diamond is rated at 97 Gigapascals while wurtzite boron nitride is rated at 114 Gigapascals and lonsdaleite at 152 Gigapascals under the same conditions.”
Harder than Diamond
Scientists Discover Material Harder Than Diamond
That's it for this month's update! We'll have more updates on TIGER-2, 8-10mm Soaring Hearts production and hopefully how the first rich blue Amora's came out next month.
Have a great weekend and see you end of March!
Less
Happy Friday! A bigger update this month with lot's to discuss so please get comfortable, grab a drink and let's get underway!
Amora Gem Updates:
Another weekly production record: We're continuing to improve our weekly production and broke the record set last month, with a new record this month. That said, we did have TIGER-1 breakdown 2x (one due to metal failure, another to computer failure). However, in both cases we were able to fix and restore production within 2 days and we've also started stocking a lot more 'likely to need' parts to ensure that we have a good shot of fixing any breakdowns same day.
So ultimately we are increasing both volume and robustness of our TIGER cut Amora Gem production.
More E color, more Internally Flawless: We've seen a steady trend in the color grades with our new rough. Multiple restocks were over 60% E color (some as high as 90%!). Similarly, we've seen a big spike in clarity with Internally Flawless Amora's sometimes being more than 50% of a weekly restock. Almost every single Amora Gem this month was colorless (D/E/F).
Out of 7.5mm rough, but no more waiting list for 7.5mm: The bulk of our production in February was 7.5mm. As a result I'm very happy to announce that as of tonight we have 0 people on the waiting list for colorless 7.5mm!
No coincidence but we're also out of 7.5mm rough now since we've produced a number of them, so we won't have any more 7.5mm restocks for another two months or so, but it was really nice to finally see one size's wait list drop to 0.
And I'm also happy to note, we have live inventory now of 7.5mm!
Amora Gem Inventory
High demand for 9mm, Upcoming sizes include more 9mm and even 10mm! We've had a big jump in demand for larger (8mm, 8.5mm, 9mm) Soaring Hearts Eternity's. As a result, we've been increasing production now of 9mm and even have some 10mm that will start production on Saturday.
The 9mm's have sold out incredibly fast after each restock, sometimes as fast as 10 minutes, so we are going to be very focused on the larger sizes over the next few months.
Soaring Hearts Eternity - studio photo! With production growing and waiting lists being steadily reduced, we've finally been able to start working on more typical things like photo's and video's. I'm thus happy to show our first studio photo of the Soaring Hearts Eternity! This is a 2.90ct (9mm) E/IF Soaring Hearts Eternity:
The Soaring Hearts Eternity- the only diamond alternative with a faceted girdle. Jonathan's review: Jonathan from Good Old Gold has released his final episode of the Soaring Hearts Eternity review. This last episode reviews the Soaring Hearts girdle, discusses how and why diamonds came to have girdles, and how Amora is the only diamond alternative offering the same type of girdle on H&A diamonds:
Thanks very much to Jonathan for the video review!
Saturated Blue Amora Gem rough! We will be cutting some new rough in the next two weeks that is a much richer blue color. These will yield 8mm and the hope is these will be Fancy Intense Blue on the GIA blue diamond scale. In other words, a rich blue that is obviously blue vs. the prior rough yielded mostly white color with a faint hint of blue
Here's a quick photo of the new rough and a comparison of the previous rough so you can see the immediate improvement in depth of blue color:
compared to last month's rough:
TIGER-2 update: We're currently cutting test stones with TIGER-2 and hope to have it fully certified and ready to move to production within the next two weeks. We found a few alignment issues and also software issues (due to lower weight of the new arms) that had to be fixed so that was the main delay but plan to have it in production this month. We'll thus be making some design changes for TIGER-4+ as we continue to improve the TIGER robot line.
TIGER-3 we are hoping to finish and get into production by late April.
TIGER-5 and AVC/Krupps: After reviewing our production and robot expansion plans, we have decided that we'll be dedicating new TIGER's completing this summer to be dedicated to various cuts. Thus, TIGER-1 - TIGER-4 will be be for Soaring Hearts. TIGER-5 will be dedicated to AVC and Krupps and TIGER-6 will be dedicated to likely Cushion cuts.
Soaring Hearts Eternity Studio video! I saved perhaps the best for last but we've also got our first studio video of a Soaring Hearts Eternity. 2.90ct, E/IF. Note that due to Soaring Hearts being optimized for 'stereoscopic' viewing (aka real life) vs. videos are made with monoscopic cameras we're not really capturing the full extent but regardless wanted to show a first video since 3D camera's aren't readily available
Misc:
What material is harder than diamond? This question was asked on Quora so I answered but thought the info might be of interest to readers. While the generic answer is that diamonds are the hardest material, there are actually two other crystals that are harder than diamond. They are both extremely rare though.
Here are the two known crystals harder than diamond:
1 - Lonsdaleite (hexagonal diamond) is 57% stronger with 152 GPa.
2 - wurtzite Boron Nitride is 18% stronger with 114 GPa.
These are the main two that have been shown to be stronger/harder than diamond.
Diamond is 97 GPa for reference.
Both of these require a step of high pressure to force the atoms into their strongest position (just like diamond is formed in high pressure). Lonsdaleite is commonly formed in meteor strikes where the collision provides the pressure, and wurtzite Boron Nitride is formed during volcanic eruptions.
“When extreme pressures are applied to lonsdaleite and another material called wurtzite boron nitride using a two stage shear deformation, they flip their atomic bonds resulting in significantly stronger materials than the unpressurized materials. Both are stronger than diamond in this pressurized state; diamond is rated at 97 Gigapascals while wurtzite boron nitride is rated at 114 Gigapascals and lonsdaleite at 152 Gigapascals under the same conditions.”
Harder than Diamond
Scientists Discover Material Harder Than Diamond
That's it for this month's update! We'll have more updates on TIGER-2, 8-10mm Soaring Hearts production and hopefully how the first rich blue Amora's came out next month.
Have a great weekend and see you end of March!
Less
Oh, it does indeed help! Well, maybe not my pocket book, but an 8mm blue Amora would look fantastic in my Swan setting. I'll be on pins and needles waiting for these to come out.
As a side note, blue is not a color listed on the dropdown box on the notification list. I added a note for it in my request.
As a side note, blue is not a color listed on the dropdown box on the notification list. I added a note for it in my request.
Doubtful they are coming any sooner than the end of this year at the earliest, but there are some gorgeous ovals being produced by other vendors! The F1 from C&C isn't too bad, but I really like the "crushed ice" effect ones from MyMoissanite (look up their instragram for videos!), and you can get them in a huge range of sizes and squatter vs. more elongated too.
Hi all,
Happy Friday! We've got another update with lots of progress to report so grab a drink, get comfortable and let's get underway!
Steadily growing Amora production! We've now hit the one year mark since TIGER-1 started production, or perhaps, struggled to start production, and while the path was very long, expensive and steep, I am happy to note that with our v7 parts production has been extremely smooth, stable and growing the past two months. We expect it to continue and we're continuing to increase total weekly production.
We've also now got a large and wide spread of new rough for sizes from 8mm - 10mm in laser cutting and running on TIGER, and will have 6.5mm available for sale next week - so the next month will be arguably our very best yet for expanding the sizes and inventory available.
8mm will finally be back in stock around April 11th for example, and 8.5mm and 9mm following closely after that.
New name - Eternity H&A!: Thanks to your feedback via a poll here on our message board, we're updating the name of our H&A cut to simply "Eternity H&A".
We considered several other names, but Eternity won with ease. We've filed for the trademark and have already updated our website to reflect the new and shorter name. Thanks very much for all those who voted and offered feedback for the new Eternity H&A name!
TIGER and Eternity H&A cutting precision compared to diamond and H&A diamond: Thanks to Jonathan at August Vintage, the cutting precision of TIGER was able to be evaluated on the most accurate system available- Sarin HD. This is the only symmetry gradinng system currently approved by GIA for symmetry grading. It is able to completely scan any diamond or gem and build an exact 3D model of the stone and then computationally analyze the cutting symmetry. How did the Amora do?
Here's the chart:
Note that as always the goal with Amora was to produce the "Ultimate Gem" and with cut playing one of the most important aspects, it's great to see that our progress with TIGER is being recognized when evaluated under the most precise grading method. Of course, there's always room for improvement as we'd like to start seeing more zeros (0 = perfection) as we continue to expand our TIGER fleet.
TIGER-2 arrival: We had a bit of a delay with some poor electronic connectors causing a last minute issue, but after rebuilding every one (and vowing to never use that supplier again) TIGER-2 is in transit to our production facility as I type. We will need a week of testing and then TIGER-2 should be producing by April 15th. That of course will double our weekly production going forward!
TIGER-3 update: TIGER-3 is getting close to completion. The last parts needed were ordered this week and we're targeting TIGER-3 being in production in early May. With that, we'll have triple the production capacity we've ever had by late Spring.
Improved Cushion H&A - Pillowy H&A cushion!: With the upcoming expansion in production, we're starting to work on preparing for Cushion H&A production. The Cushion H&A is the second most requested cut so that's why it's next up for production. The one complaint we heard from our Ultra Cushion was that it was too similar in shape to a round.
Thus, we prepared two new Cushion shapes - a squared up one and a "pillowy" one and put those out for a vote here on our boards.
The winner, by a large margin with over 87% of the votes = Pillowy Cushion!
Here's the generated ideal scope image and rendered office image of the new Cushion H&A (Pillowy shape) that we'll be putting into production with a release date of June or July.
Pillowy Cushion - rendered Ideal Scope Image:
Rendered spotlight image:
Rich blue Amora Eternity H&A in progress: We are now cutting the first of the blue rough that was shown in last month's update. Hope to have grading results and news in the next two weeks.
Natural blue Silicon Carbide found on the moon! Since we are getting closer to having blue Amora Gem's soon, I was doing some research on natural blue Silicon Carbide.
I was quite surprised to find that small crystals of blue and fragments of pale blue SiC (Silicon Carbide) were found on the moon!
Specifically:
2 blue SiC crystals = Apollo 12 landing site
pale blue SiC = Apollo 15, 16, 17 landing sites
The creation of these blue crystals is believed to be from meteorite impacts providing the super high heat needed to form blue Silicon Carbide
Source:Si Silicon
Girdle comparison - Amora vs Forever One Moissanite: As I noted in the symmetry section, the goal with Amora has been and will continue to be the production of the Ultimate Gem. Towards that end, we've always maintained that faceted girdle is the ultimate girdle for any round, the same as is always done on H&A diamonds. With Charles and Colvard claiming they had 58 facet rounds (see below) we purchased 8 Forever One Moissanites to have NAGL verify their facet count. As part of that though we were able to take some girdle comparison photos in identical lighting and wanted to show those to you.
Amora Eternity H&A - 64 facet girdle (note due to the zoom on the girdle the rest is a bit out of focus):
F1 Moissanite girdle - Polished for 95% and left rough where they will engrave:
Diamond - 64 faceted girdle (no image permissions so just providing a link for now):
http://www.onlinediamondbuyingadvice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/GIA-Laser-Inscription.png
The polished girdle is an immediate flag that's it's not a diamond btw. The engraving is actually hard to find, vs the girdle itself is pretty simple to see.
In our opinion, the faceted girdle simply looks more perfect on the round cut, befitting a forever stone and certainly for a gem designed to be the Ultimate Gem, and is why we do it on all our H&A Amora's.
<continued in next post>
Happy Friday! We've got another update with lots of progress to report so grab a drink, get comfortable and let's get underway!
Steadily growing Amora production! We've now hit the one year mark since TIGER-1 started production, or perhaps, struggled to start production, and while the path was very long, expensive and steep, I am happy to note that with our v7 parts production has been extremely smooth, stable and growing the past two months. We expect it to continue and we're continuing to increase total weekly production.
We've also now got a large and wide spread of new rough for sizes from 8mm - 10mm in laser cutting and running on TIGER, and will have 6.5mm available for sale next week - so the next month will be arguably our very best yet for expanding the sizes and inventory available.
8mm will finally be back in stock around April 11th for example, and 8.5mm and 9mm following closely after that.
New name - Eternity H&A!: Thanks to your feedback via a poll here on our message board, we're updating the name of our H&A cut to simply "Eternity H&A".
We considered several other names, but Eternity won with ease. We've filed for the trademark and have already updated our website to reflect the new and shorter name. Thanks very much for all those who voted and offered feedback for the new Eternity H&A name!
TIGER and Eternity H&A cutting precision compared to diamond and H&A diamond: Thanks to Jonathan at August Vintage, the cutting precision of TIGER was able to be evaluated on the most accurate system available- Sarin HD. This is the only symmetry gradinng system currently approved by GIA for symmetry grading. It is able to completely scan any diamond or gem and build an exact 3D model of the stone and then computationally analyze the cutting symmetry. How did the Amora do?
Here's the chart:
Note that as always the goal with Amora was to produce the "Ultimate Gem" and with cut playing one of the most important aspects, it's great to see that our progress with TIGER is being recognized when evaluated under the most precise grading method. Of course, there's always room for improvement as we'd like to start seeing more zeros (0 = perfection) as we continue to expand our TIGER fleet.
TIGER-2 arrival: We had a bit of a delay with some poor electronic connectors causing a last minute issue, but after rebuilding every one (and vowing to never use that supplier again) TIGER-2 is in transit to our production facility as I type. We will need a week of testing and then TIGER-2 should be producing by April 15th. That of course will double our weekly production going forward!
TIGER-3 update: TIGER-3 is getting close to completion. The last parts needed were ordered this week and we're targeting TIGER-3 being in production in early May. With that, we'll have triple the production capacity we've ever had by late Spring.
Improved Cushion H&A - Pillowy H&A cushion!: With the upcoming expansion in production, we're starting to work on preparing for Cushion H&A production. The Cushion H&A is the second most requested cut so that's why it's next up for production. The one complaint we heard from our Ultra Cushion was that it was too similar in shape to a round.
Thus, we prepared two new Cushion shapes - a squared up one and a "pillowy" one and put those out for a vote here on our boards.
The winner, by a large margin with over 87% of the votes = Pillowy Cushion!
Here's the generated ideal scope image and rendered office image of the new Cushion H&A (Pillowy shape) that we'll be putting into production with a release date of June or July.
Pillowy Cushion - rendered Ideal Scope Image:
Rendered spotlight image:
Rich blue Amora Eternity H&A in progress: We are now cutting the first of the blue rough that was shown in last month's update. Hope to have grading results and news in the next two weeks.
Natural blue Silicon Carbide found on the moon! Since we are getting closer to having blue Amora Gem's soon, I was doing some research on natural blue Silicon Carbide.
I was quite surprised to find that small crystals of blue and fragments of pale blue SiC (Silicon Carbide) were found on the moon!
Specifically:
2 blue SiC crystals = Apollo 12 landing site
pale blue SiC = Apollo 15, 16, 17 landing sites
The creation of these blue crystals is believed to be from meteorite impacts providing the super high heat needed to form blue Silicon Carbide
Source:Si Silicon
Girdle comparison - Amora vs Forever One Moissanite: As I noted in the symmetry section, the goal with Amora has been and will continue to be the production of the Ultimate Gem. Towards that end, we've always maintained that faceted girdle is the ultimate girdle for any round, the same as is always done on H&A diamonds. With Charles and Colvard claiming they had 58 facet rounds (see below) we purchased 8 Forever One Moissanites to have NAGL verify their facet count. As part of that though we were able to take some girdle comparison photos in identical lighting and wanted to show those to you.
Amora Eternity H&A - 64 facet girdle (note due to the zoom on the girdle the rest is a bit out of focus):
F1 Moissanite girdle - Polished for 95% and left rough where they will engrave:
Diamond - 64 faceted girdle (no image permissions so just providing a link for now):
http://www.onlinediamondbuyingadvice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/GIA-Laser-Inscription.png
The polished girdle is an immediate flag that's it's not a diamond btw. The engraving is actually hard to find, vs the girdle itself is pretty simple to see.
In our opinion, the faceted girdle simply looks more perfect on the round cut, befitting a forever stone and certainly for a gem designed to be the Ultimate Gem, and is why we do it on all our H&A Amora's.
<continued in next post>
58 facets for Moissanite rounds? Not true... We've noticed that Charles and Colvard has been claiming that their Moissanite Forever One rounds are all 58 facets. This is rather odd to claim if you understand the details of the optimal round cut which has 8 fold symmetry, so we purchased 8 different Forever One rounds in varying sizes and had them shipped directly to NAGL for independent grading.
Here are their claims at CharlesandColvard.com:
Forever One Round:
Forever One H&A Round:
The results:
All Forever One Moissanite is *57 facets*. Not 58 facets.
Independent grading results with snippets from the certs - the engraving varied Moissanite to Moissanite with 3 main styles as noted:
For reference, cutting to 58 facets would leave a clear hole in the center as the 58th facet would be the culet facet. This 58th facet is the clear hole in the middle of the OEC cut for example.
In modern rounds, there is no culet and it has 8 fold symmetry (56 facets total) + the table facet = 57 facets.
No idea how their 58 facet round Forever One claim started, or why, but it is incorrect advertising.
It is also trivial for anyone with gemological/cutting knowledge to verify that it is wrong and a bit bizarre that it has continued unless they are trying to falsely capitalize on the fact that some customers think that more facets = more sparkle (which isn't true btw).
A link to their page if you want to see the claim directly:
Forever One Round Moissanite Gemstone
Our Amora Eternity H&A, just like all H&A diamonds, is of course 57 facets.
Alondra Engagement ring! We'll be offering our new Allondra Engagement ring in the next few weeks. This ring is based on customer requests for a delicate, micro-pave ring with smooth, flowing lines to showcase their larger Amora Gems (8mm, 8.5mm, 9mm). It features our suprise diamond on the underside, and will offer a matching band.
Tons of details with every head optimized for that specific size, seamless one-piece design, etc.
A few CAD renders are attached, and more details at our new Allondra page:
Timeless Alondra Ring
![Allondra-8.5mm-zoom-side__71157_zoom[1].png](/data/attachments/27/27407-945039a787da196f0514d0cf95aa7aa3.jpg)
![Allondra-8.5mm-topdown__67719_zoom[1].png](/data/attachments/27/27408-7e482a1d15ffaae398e33862131883b4.jpg)
![Allondra-8.5mm-zoom-underside__35564_zoom[1].png](/data/attachments/27/27409-2ec7638bf7aba67ce8b9e4fbcb4d33b9.jpg)
Note - the above CAD doesn't show the surprise diamond but final model will have it.
BTD News:
New website timeline: Once we have sufficient inventory we're planning to finally move to our new website. This will let you leverage some of the new features such as the Earring wizard that will let you quickly pick two Amora's and a setting for earrings, or quickly select a ring+Amora all in one place vs. the required hoops to run through on our current site.
Misc:
Laniakea - our home SuperCluster: With Amora's origins in outer space, I thought this video detailing how Earth and the Milky Way fit into the larger mapping of the Universe might be of interest. Our home "SuperCluster" of galaxies has been named Laniakea, or "Immeasurable Heavens" in Hawiian. Some nice graphics and info in the video:
Undercover video from YouTuber on buying diamonds at the big name jewelers: An interesting video showing a comparison of buying a diamond solitaire from the big name jewelers like Tiffany, Cartier, etc.
That's all for this months update. April will be our biggest production month to date so look for a lot of new Eternity H&A 8mm - 10mm being available at last!
Have a great weekend and see you next month!
Less
Here are their claims at CharlesandColvard.com:
Forever One Round:
Forever One H&A Round:
The results:
All Forever One Moissanite is *57 facets*. Not 58 facets.
Independent grading results with snippets from the certs - the engraving varied Moissanite to Moissanite with 3 main styles as noted:
For reference, cutting to 58 facets would leave a clear hole in the center as the 58th facet would be the culet facet. This 58th facet is the clear hole in the middle of the OEC cut for example.
In modern rounds, there is no culet and it has 8 fold symmetry (56 facets total) + the table facet = 57 facets.
No idea how their 58 facet round Forever One claim started, or why, but it is incorrect advertising.
It is also trivial for anyone with gemological/cutting knowledge to verify that it is wrong and a bit bizarre that it has continued unless they are trying to falsely capitalize on the fact that some customers think that more facets = more sparkle (which isn't true btw).
A link to their page if you want to see the claim directly:
Forever One Round Moissanite Gemstone
Our Amora Eternity H&A, just like all H&A diamonds, is of course 57 facets.
Alondra Engagement ring! We'll be offering our new Allondra Engagement ring in the next few weeks. This ring is based on customer requests for a delicate, micro-pave ring with smooth, flowing lines to showcase their larger Amora Gems (8mm, 8.5mm, 9mm). It features our suprise diamond on the underside, and will offer a matching band.
Tons of details with every head optimized for that specific size, seamless one-piece design, etc.
A few CAD renders are attached, and more details at our new Allondra page:
Timeless Alondra Ring
Note - the above CAD doesn't show the surprise diamond but final model will have it.
BTD News:
New website timeline: Once we have sufficient inventory we're planning to finally move to our new website. This will let you leverage some of the new features such as the Earring wizard that will let you quickly pick two Amora's and a setting for earrings, or quickly select a ring+Amora all in one place vs. the required hoops to run through on our current site.
Misc:
Laniakea - our home SuperCluster: With Amora's origins in outer space, I thought this video detailing how Earth and the Milky Way fit into the larger mapping of the Universe might be of interest. Our home "SuperCluster" of galaxies has been named Laniakea, or "Immeasurable Heavens" in Hawiian. Some nice graphics and info in the video:
Undercover video from YouTuber on buying diamonds at the big name jewelers: An interesting video showing a comparison of buying a diamond solitaire from the big name jewelers like Tiffany, Cartier, etc.
That's all for this months update. April will be our biggest production month to date so look for a lot of new Eternity H&A 8mm - 10mm being available at last!
Have a great weekend and see you next month!
Less
Hi all,
Happy Friday! Another month has gone by and time to catch up and discuss our progress - thus please grab a drink and let's get underway!
Amora Eternity H&A updates: We were able to increase the size range and quantity of our Eternity H&A production as expected this month. We restocked with everything from 1ct - 4ct sizes! Most notable was this D color, Internally Flawless 3.91ct Eternity which is the largest D/IF we've had to date:
We're still low on available inventory but we have another nice restock that will be ready today in fact (1ct, 1.25ct, 1.5ct-2ct and 4ct).
Amora Gem Inventory
New logo for the Amora Eternity! With production stabilizing we're finally able to start work on branding and generally nicer touches for the Amora Eternity. First up - a new logo!
New Eternity Studio Photo Of course, beyond a logo we have to have a nice studio photo - thus let me introduce you to the Amora Eternity H&A up close and crystal clear:
Of interest, after we posted this photo it garnered 4,400+ likes on our Facebook page:
BetterThanDiamond.com
Thanks to everyone who liked it!
Eternity H&A fire! Last Friday we had an absolutely beautiful blue sky, sunny day. A sunny day is not of great concern in California, etc. but for Seattle, we've set a new record for rainy days this year.
With the amazing sunshine, our production staff grabbed a just finished 8mm Amora Eternity off of TIGER and took it outside to watch it do it's magic in the sun and made a quick cell phone video as well.
This was not designed to be a promo video at all, but they sent it to me and I figured we might as well show what the Eternity can do in the sun. We'll definitely film with better camera, in a setting, etc. once we get past the rainy season but for now enjoy!
(Give it about 15 seconds where it really kicks in, and then enjoy!)
Amora Eternity vs Ultra vs UE1 vs UE2: In some of the discussion threads here on the boards there were several posters asking if we would bring back the Ultra. My point was that we have Ultra's at our lab and the Eternity easily beats out the Ultra.
However, better than saying it, we did the modeling with videos of the Eternity and Ultra in spotlighting and office lighting so you can see exactly the differences.
I also added in two modified Eternity possible variations that would make the Eternity more Ultra like (aptly named UE1 and UE2 for Ultra Eternity X).
You are welcome to view and vote on your favorite but I believe the votes will reflect why the Eternity is our premiere H&A cut and replaced the Ultra.
Amora Eternity vs Ultra vs UE1 vs UE2 - spotlight and office modeling
On a related note, we also did the modeling of the Forever One Moissanite round and H&A cut's as well using actual stones scanned in via the Sarin HD system, so you can further compare these in spotlighting and office lighting to compare.
Forever One Moissanite Round - Cut Analysis
Forever One H&A Moissanite - Cut analysis
Next week we're going to see if we can get the videos synced and shown side by side so we can create "versus" videos to make comparative viewing and evaluation trivial.
Amora AVR-OEC coming! I'm happy to announce that we'll have the Amora OEC-AVR available in July! The AVR (August Vintage Round) is a Super Ideal OEC designed by Jonathan at AugustVintage.
Thus for OEC lovers this is hopefully an opportunity to own the best cut OEC diamond alternative available.
Here's the Amora AVR in spotlight modeling:
This is a limited production run and we're taking $100 deposits (pre-orders) for those interested. The deposit becomes a 100% store credit to use but guarantees you access to an AVR to purchase. You can also sign up on the waiting list of course but the deposit guarantees a stone, assuming we have a match for you.
Key point - we will be cutting these with no culet. The culet is the 'open window' in the center of the stone that we used to do on the original Amora OEC. There are several reasons for this:
1 - Too many customer complaints about the "hole in the middle" of their stone. For those who bought without knowledge of the antique style.
2 - More brilliance/fire - the culet of course leaks light out the back, reducing the visual impact. This is why the round cut dropped it long ago.
3 - For those who wanted an open culet, no consensus on "large culet", "medium culet", small culet...we'd never be able to make enough to provide the carat size/color/clarity/culet size combo if so.
There's more info on the Amora AVR-OEC page here:
Amora Gem OEC-AVR Cut
Blue progress: Bad news and good news on the Blue Amoras. The bad:
1 - There is color zoning on the underside. Thus you have roughly 3 clear zones amongst the otherwise rich blue.
2 - The internal clarity is low with carbon type defects.
The good:
The color is exceptional from the top down and would very likely grade Fancy Intense Blue. In other words a true blue that is rich and saturated, not just a faint hint/tint of blue.
We believe the issues remain solvable and so are continuing to work on the blues. One main goal has been met - to achieve a rich, intense blue so the other issues are secondary but need to be resolved before we can begin production.
T2 update: TIGER-2 arrived three weeks ago to our production facility. Unfortunately after hooking up all the electrical and water connections, we've found there was some damage in transit and have been doing quite a bit of work now replacing and upgrading a number of components.
We did manage to cut some first test stones just yesterday but found some additional issues to be fixed.
It's possible we may have production with T2 starting next week but one lesson learned here - for T4 and higher, we are going to build in place to avoid moving and risking damage.
TIGER's for reference weigh just about a ton, (they are huge and require a step system to access, and yet at the same time are highly precisely tuned...so moving after building, even with a giant steel cage and frame suspending it during shipping, clearly is not a good plan any longer. We had thought that by enveloping it in it's own steel framework that it could be moved with no issue.
T3 is well underway, and slated to complete end of May and assuming a more successful transport to our production faclity, we are hoping to have 3x the production resources we've ever had in July!
BTD News:
Asha restock We're sold out of Asha H&A in sizes from 1ct - 9ct, except a few left in 8mm. Thus, we're starting a new run and will have a restock by roughly July.
Misc:
Trends in Engagement rings (diamond): A new site, RareCarat.com has been crunching the numbers on engagement ring purchases across the US. Among other interesting results, the average spent on a diamond for an engagement is 2.2 months pay. That translates to:
"Folks in New York are shelling out the most, domestically, spending an average of $11,692, followed by Rhode Island ($11,365), California ($10,747), New Jersey ($10,269), and Massachusetts ($10,154). As for the lowest spends per state, Rare Carat's Montana users are coughing up the least ($5,568), followed by South Dakota ($5,611), New Mexico ($6,051), Nebraska ($6,059), and Utah ($6,171). On average, the site's users across all states drop 2.2 months' salary on the rock itself. "
Top shapes were - 1)Round (more than all others combined) 2)Cushion 3)Oval 4)Princess and 5)Emerald.
2/3 of buyers preferered to get the best cut but were quick to offset that with lower clarity (SI1 was the most popular).
You can browse their data and results here:
Our Diamond Search Data | Rare Carat
Spring and Tulip Season in the Pacific Northwest: While I noted the issue with all the rain in Seattle, I felt compelled to close the blog with a counterpoint and show some of the beauty of the NorthWest. When we get sun, it's incredible - below is a sunrise photo and one that shows how true blue the NW skies are while also highlighting that we are fortunate to have lots of Eagles as well due to all the water and lakes and thus fish.
(These photos are both by Wild NW Beauty - you can see a lot more stunning photos of the NW here: Wild Northwest Beauty Photography)
That's it for this month's blog! We'll be adding the new comparison videos hopefully as early as next week and of course working on getting T2 into production this month.
Have a great weekend, a great month and see you end of next month!
Less
Happy Friday! Another month has gone by and time to catch up and discuss our progress - thus please grab a drink and let's get underway!
Amora Eternity H&A updates: We were able to increase the size range and quantity of our Eternity H&A production as expected this month. We restocked with everything from 1ct - 4ct sizes! Most notable was this D color, Internally Flawless 3.91ct Eternity which is the largest D/IF we've had to date:
We're still low on available inventory but we have another nice restock that will be ready today in fact (1ct, 1.25ct, 1.5ct-2ct and 4ct).
Amora Gem Inventory
New logo for the Amora Eternity! With production stabilizing we're finally able to start work on branding and generally nicer touches for the Amora Eternity. First up - a new logo!
New Eternity Studio Photo Of course, beyond a logo we have to have a nice studio photo - thus let me introduce you to the Amora Eternity H&A up close and crystal clear:
Of interest, after we posted this photo it garnered 4,400+ likes on our Facebook page:
BetterThanDiamond.com
Thanks to everyone who liked it!
Eternity H&A fire! Last Friday we had an absolutely beautiful blue sky, sunny day. A sunny day is not of great concern in California, etc. but for Seattle, we've set a new record for rainy days this year.
With the amazing sunshine, our production staff grabbed a just finished 8mm Amora Eternity off of TIGER and took it outside to watch it do it's magic in the sun and made a quick cell phone video as well.
This was not designed to be a promo video at all, but they sent it to me and I figured we might as well show what the Eternity can do in the sun. We'll definitely film with better camera, in a setting, etc. once we get past the rainy season but for now enjoy!
(Give it about 15 seconds where it really kicks in, and then enjoy!)
Amora Eternity vs Ultra vs UE1 vs UE2: In some of the discussion threads here on the boards there were several posters asking if we would bring back the Ultra. My point was that we have Ultra's at our lab and the Eternity easily beats out the Ultra.
However, better than saying it, we did the modeling with videos of the Eternity and Ultra in spotlighting and office lighting so you can see exactly the differences.
I also added in two modified Eternity possible variations that would make the Eternity more Ultra like (aptly named UE1 and UE2 for Ultra Eternity X).
You are welcome to view and vote on your favorite but I believe the votes will reflect why the Eternity is our premiere H&A cut and replaced the Ultra.
Amora Eternity vs Ultra vs UE1 vs UE2 - spotlight and office modeling
On a related note, we also did the modeling of the Forever One Moissanite round and H&A cut's as well using actual stones scanned in via the Sarin HD system, so you can further compare these in spotlighting and office lighting to compare.
Forever One Moissanite Round - Cut Analysis
Forever One H&A Moissanite - Cut analysis
Next week we're going to see if we can get the videos synced and shown side by side so we can create "versus" videos to make comparative viewing and evaluation trivial.
Amora AVR-OEC coming! I'm happy to announce that we'll have the Amora OEC-AVR available in July! The AVR (August Vintage Round) is a Super Ideal OEC designed by Jonathan at AugustVintage.
Thus for OEC lovers this is hopefully an opportunity to own the best cut OEC diamond alternative available.
Here's the Amora AVR in spotlight modeling:
This is a limited production run and we're taking $100 deposits (pre-orders) for those interested. The deposit becomes a 100% store credit to use but guarantees you access to an AVR to purchase. You can also sign up on the waiting list of course but the deposit guarantees a stone, assuming we have a match for you.
Key point - we will be cutting these with no culet. The culet is the 'open window' in the center of the stone that we used to do on the original Amora OEC. There are several reasons for this:
1 - Too many customer complaints about the "hole in the middle" of their stone. For those who bought without knowledge of the antique style.
2 - More brilliance/fire - the culet of course leaks light out the back, reducing the visual impact. This is why the round cut dropped it long ago.
3 - For those who wanted an open culet, no consensus on "large culet", "medium culet", small culet...we'd never be able to make enough to provide the carat size/color/clarity/culet size combo if so.
There's more info on the Amora AVR-OEC page here:
Amora Gem OEC-AVR Cut
Blue progress: Bad news and good news on the Blue Amoras. The bad:
1 - There is color zoning on the underside. Thus you have roughly 3 clear zones amongst the otherwise rich blue.
2 - The internal clarity is low with carbon type defects.
The good:
The color is exceptional from the top down and would very likely grade Fancy Intense Blue. In other words a true blue that is rich and saturated, not just a faint hint/tint of blue.
We believe the issues remain solvable and so are continuing to work on the blues. One main goal has been met - to achieve a rich, intense blue so the other issues are secondary but need to be resolved before we can begin production.
T2 update: TIGER-2 arrived three weeks ago to our production facility. Unfortunately after hooking up all the electrical and water connections, we've found there was some damage in transit and have been doing quite a bit of work now replacing and upgrading a number of components.
We did manage to cut some first test stones just yesterday but found some additional issues to be fixed.
It's possible we may have production with T2 starting next week but one lesson learned here - for T4 and higher, we are going to build in place to avoid moving and risking damage.
TIGER's for reference weigh just about a ton, (they are huge and require a step system to access, and yet at the same time are highly precisely tuned...so moving after building, even with a giant steel cage and frame suspending it during shipping, clearly is not a good plan any longer. We had thought that by enveloping it in it's own steel framework that it could be moved with no issue.
T3 is well underway, and slated to complete end of May and assuming a more successful transport to our production faclity, we are hoping to have 3x the production resources we've ever had in July!
BTD News:
Asha restock We're sold out of Asha H&A in sizes from 1ct - 9ct, except a few left in 8mm. Thus, we're starting a new run and will have a restock by roughly July.
Misc:
Trends in Engagement rings (diamond): A new site, RareCarat.com has been crunching the numbers on engagement ring purchases across the US. Among other interesting results, the average spent on a diamond for an engagement is 2.2 months pay. That translates to:
"Folks in New York are shelling out the most, domestically, spending an average of $11,692, followed by Rhode Island ($11,365), California ($10,747), New Jersey ($10,269), and Massachusetts ($10,154). As for the lowest spends per state, Rare Carat's Montana users are coughing up the least ($5,568), followed by South Dakota ($5,611), New Mexico ($6,051), Nebraska ($6,059), and Utah ($6,171). On average, the site's users across all states drop 2.2 months' salary on the rock itself. "
Top shapes were - 1)Round (more than all others combined) 2)Cushion 3)Oval 4)Princess and 5)Emerald.
2/3 of buyers preferered to get the best cut but were quick to offset that with lower clarity (SI1 was the most popular).
You can browse their data and results here:
Our Diamond Search Data | Rare Carat
Spring and Tulip Season in the Pacific Northwest: While I noted the issue with all the rain in Seattle, I felt compelled to close the blog with a counterpoint and show some of the beauty of the NorthWest. When we get sun, it's incredible - below is a sunrise photo and one that shows how true blue the NW skies are while also highlighting that we are fortunate to have lots of Eagles as well due to all the water and lakes and thus fish.
(These photos are both by Wild NW Beauty - you can see a lot more stunning photos of the NW here: Wild Northwest Beauty Photography)
That's it for this month's blog! We'll be adding the new comparison videos hopefully as early as next week and of course working on getting T2 into production this month.
Have a great weekend, a great month and see you end of next month!
Less
I was thinking the same- I thought there's higher demand for AVCs vs AVRs so, therefore, maybe release the cushions before the rounds of this cut. I will assume that they are still working on the AVCs' modifications..and going back into the old post- it was mentioned that AVCs will be dedicated with TIGER-5. So maybe waiting until then?
Last edited:
Hi LucilleBall,
Re: AVC = they are linked to when we get a dedicated TIGER setup (tentatively TIGER-5).
The reason AVR jumped in sooner is because ultimately it's a chunkier round...so we can run them on one of the Eternity H&A Tigers relatively easily as it's all the same facets, just chunkier and steeper angles.
The AVC, Cushion H&A, etc. will all required modified fingers for TIGER to produce so it's more efficient to put them on dedicated TIGERs.
Hope that helps,
Less
Re: AVC = they are linked to when we get a dedicated TIGER setup (tentatively TIGER-5).
The reason AVR jumped in sooner is because ultimately it's a chunkier round...so we can run them on one of the Eternity H&A Tigers relatively easily as it's all the same facets, just chunkier and steeper angles.
The AVC, Cushion H&A, etc. will all required modified fingers for TIGER to produce so it's more efficient to put them on dedicated TIGERs.
Hope that helps,
Less
Hi MinMorocco,
To clarify - your post in the OEC thread was not deleted, but was put in suspense due to the cursing reference. We'll edit and get it back out, but it wasn't deleted. Going forward, please avoid the cursing references and you won't have this issue.
Re: ordering ACC instead of AVC - I understand the frustration and apologize for the delays. Our goal with the Amora is to make the ultimate gem which is why we spent so much on the TIGER robots, etc. to ensure the ultimate cutting, for each cut.
We could also certainly just order up random hand cuts from the same exact place in China that is behind almost every other new 'brand' of moissanite being offered by a variety of jewelers (they send out spam email to pretty much every jeweler in the US offering their stones), out there but there's a lot/huge amount of randomness to the end result and they certainly can't rival TIGER's cutting precision, repeatability, faceted girdles, independent grading, etc. So it really depends on what you are after ultimately.
Hope that helps,
Less
To clarify - your post in the OEC thread was not deleted, but was put in suspense due to the cursing reference. We'll edit and get it back out, but it wasn't deleted. Going forward, please avoid the cursing references and you won't have this issue.
Re: ordering ACC instead of AVC - I understand the frustration and apologize for the delays. Our goal with the Amora is to make the ultimate gem which is why we spent so much on the TIGER robots, etc. to ensure the ultimate cutting, for each cut.
We could also certainly just order up random hand cuts from the same exact place in China that is behind almost every other new 'brand' of moissanite being offered by a variety of jewelers (they send out spam email to pretty much every jeweler in the US offering their stones), out there but there's a lot/huge amount of randomness to the end result and they certainly can't rival TIGER's cutting precision, repeatability, faceted girdles, independent grading, etc. So it really depends on what you are after ultimately.
Hope that helps,
Less