EightStar Famous Diamond

To most of EightStar's competitors who cut for bulk not beauty, sacrificing 10 percent of a D-color IF-clarity 15-carat diamond's weight is a catastrophic loss. But Mr. von Sternberg sees the loss as a gain. "What is it about a diamond that you notice first and foremost from clear across a room?" he asks. "Its blaze of white light or its glitter of spectral fire. Hence we have no choice but to cut for sizzle not size."

It should also be noted that several of EightStar's competitors do not cut fancy color color diamonds, sticking to colorless and near-colorless stones, which they consider to be more marketable, despite the growing trend towards fancy color stones. This is not the case with EightStar. In early 2005 the company sold a fine natural blue EightStar diamond of approximately half a carat. Its exact color grade is not known but is rumored to be better than Fancy Blue. The gem appeared in the February 2005 edition of Robb Report magazine and is arguably the finest cut round natural blue diamond in the world presently.