Much More Beautiful Diamonds—Part 2
What happened to diamonds in Japan
In my last blog post, which I called “Much More Beautiful Diamonds—Part 1”, I attempted to give a sense of what must happen to the shape of a cut diamond in order for it to put on the light show diamonds are famous for. I labeled the facets of a diamond and gave the proportions that are generally included in ideal diamond cutting standards. Sample photographs were provided that show brilliance occurring, actual observable brilliance as seen in a Firescope as well as fire occurring, actual photographable rainbows being dispersed using a device I commissioned to be made by an MIT engineer with two advanced degrees. My thesis is that the more perfectly cut a diamond is, the more beautiful it becomes as its power to unleash the spectacular play of color, brilliance and sparkle comes from a perfect man-made path of light. With the invention of the Firescope (1984) came the first ability to actually see with one’s own eye what path light was taking in a diamond and, as a result, to judge the quality of its cutting in an intuitive way.
A Japanese entrepreneur, having just looked into a Firescope for the first time said: “With a shock it suddenly occurred to me that what we had here was a device that clearly and unmistakably showed how good or bad a diamond’s cut was. All that was needed was the human eye. All you had to do was look for yourself.” This gentleman, a complete outsider to the world of diamonds, would eventually discover a huge hole in that world of diamonds and be sucked by its vacuum into the deepest chambers of the fine art of diamond cutting, or diamond polishing as it is referred to in the trade.
TAMURA AND SONY
Early in its history, Tamura-san approached Sony, impressed by their “out-of-the-box-and-into-action” philosophy, and told them he wanted to distribute their products. He was a young man who could draw a crowd in Tokyo
He put one condition on his relationship that nearly cost him the empire he created: he insisted on being in business for himself. Apparently there was some in-house discussion about whether Tamura should be an employee or not. In the end, Tamura prevailed and went on to create the entrepreneurial dream of creating a nation-wide Sony distribution network with, at its apogee, 400 salespeople servicing accounts all over Japan Tokyo
A SECONDARY REASON FOR RETIRING
One day in the 1970’s, on Tamura’s 43rd birthday, he summoned a convocation of his employees and announced two things to them that were so profound as to be picked up on and reported by the media:
1. Retiring
2. Gifting the Company
Mr. Tamura was taxed and tired from forging the pioneer enterprise he did and was ready to break new sociological ground in Japan Japan
Tamura’s acts sent out waves in all directions and brought lines of people to his door looking for opportunity, direction, and guidance from a master. He gave everybody some time to say what they had to offer, only a little. On his hidden agenda was his search for a new opportunity for himself, feeling too young at 43 to retire to a rocking chair. One at a time people came in for a moment with Tamura, one at a time they were told thank you and good-bye.
A DIAMOND DEALER WITH BIG IDEAS
One day a man Tamura called Ken in his book showed up from what for Tamura was a different world, explaining he was a purveyor of diamonds. Tamura said he could make the meeting quite easy and brief by announcing he was simply not interested in diamonds, then stood up and expected Ken to leave. “Diamonds leave me cold,” Tamura announced. Ken surprised Tamura by saying he had brought a diamond to show with a cut based on science. I was told a few years later it was this word science that caught his attention since he had never associated science with diamonds; only romance and high prices. Ken was asked, “What does science have to do with it?”
Tamura was told about the physicist Tolkowsky, the physics of diamond proportioning and the importance of what Ken was referring to as ideally cut diamonds. From a briefcase came a chart of cutting proportions similar to the one I put in my last blog posting.
Tamura’s imagination was touched. He asked to see one of these ideal cut diamonds, looked at it, then remarked to Ken he thought it was beautiful.
The next question that Ken faced from Tamura, in my opinion, created a tiny niche in the history of diamond cutting that can be used as a kind of line of demarcation between the old way of looking at diamonds and the new one. After all, Tamura’s curiosity had been stimulated by the science behind what Ken was telling him, it was no wonder Tamura assumed there was a tool or instrument Ken had with him that he could put the diamond in to demonstrate what the diamond did with light so he could see the truth for himself. Did Ken have such an instrument was Tamura’s question. Ken did not and found himself at a loss to explain why he could not build a bridge from the diagram of light moving in the diamond to the diamond itself. Thinking of himself as easy prey to a salesman who could not completely demonstrate his product, Tamura reminded him that diamonds left him cold and told him his time was up.On his way out Ken asked if he could return should he be able to produce such a device. Tamura told him he would be delighted to see such an invention and Ken went off to invent. He and experts he consulted with (in optics, plastics, manufacturing, physics, etc.) worked part-time for several years until one day they patented a device called the Firescope and trademarked its name, a name that has always seemed odd to me since, albeit it is a scope, it does not measure or demonstrate fire in a diamond as fire is the result of light being bent and broken down into colors. It gives you a visual image of a diamond’s brilliance, not fire. It would have made more sense to call it a Brilliancescope.
DIAMOND DEALER INVENTS SOMETHINGNevertheless, Tamura was visited again and shown the Firescope and said the words from the beginning of this chapter: “With a shock it suddenly occurred to me that what we had here was a device that clearly and unmistakably showed how good or bad a diamond’s cut was. All that was needed was the human eye. All you had to do was look for yourself.”
Ken did not have the deep pockets of Tamura. Tamura did not have the stunning invention of Ken. Tamura exclaimed there should be a Firescope in every jewelry store in the world so every consumer could really and truly see what they were buying. He recalled how uncomfortable he felt buying his fiancé a diamond because he had to trust somebody he did not know and take his word for how he represented a diamond’s cutting, a diamond that was for sale for over 20 thousand dollars. Ken heard “Firescope in every jewelry store in the world” as a symphony of cash registers playing his favorite melody.
CONTACTING DEBEERS
The two of them formed a partnership and decided to market the Firescope. Tamura ordered plenty of them and kept them in boxes ready for the big rush once they were discovered. Tamura contacted the international consortium of diamonds, DeBeers, to introduce the Firescope to them and, perhaps because of his social prominence, DeBeers agreed to see him. A meeting was arranged with one of their representatives who said he felt the Firescope was among the most important gemological advances of his lifetime.
DeBeers has a booth at the three main jewelry trade shows held in America : New York , Las Vegas , Los Angeles Dallas then, not Las Vegas
IN JAPAN
Anybody who has spent time in Japan
THE FIRESCOPE IS UNFORGIVING
The lines of cutters and dealers that did form for the scopes disappeared quickly as word spread that this device would do nothing but show people everything the cutter did wrong when he cut the stone. There were no takers. Tamura became the first person in the history of diamonds to glimpse the truth about the way one of the most expensive commodities on earth was prepared for sale and it took him, and the rest of the entire jewelry industry, completely by surprise.
The idea of selling Firescopes to every jewelry store in the world evaporated and the business plan for the partners morphed into Tamura taking one single scope from diamond firm to diamond firm looking to amalgamate an inventory of diamonds that appeared perfectly cut in the Firescope. “We will be the only people who can actually prove that we have an inventory of ideally cut diamonds. All clients will be able to see for themselves,” Tamura explained to his partner as he embarked upon his journey into the wholesale and retail diamond centers of Tokyo
HUNTING DOWN THE PERFECT CUT
Tamura did not care about the price. He realized that what he was after was beyond rare; people would surely pay more, he reasoned, for what he could demonstrate with his scope. With this in mind, he decided it did not matter whether he bought from a wholesaler, a retailer, a large department store, a cutter, an independent dealer. Whoever could provide him with a diamond that appeared mostly red in his scope would get Tamura’s money. (White in the scope indicated light leakage in the diamond, a reflection of cutter error; where one saw red in the scope view of the diamond light was being “returned” to the viewer – as with a mirror. White indicated problems, red indicated correct cutting.)
Tamura spent months meeting people in the diamond world, held out large amounts of cash for purchasing (Tamura was quite wealthy), the temptation that ordinarily gets instant results in buying markets of all types of merchandise all over the world. The truth is that one of the greatest entrepreneurs in the history of Japan
GO TO AMERICA
Those diamond dealers who could refrain from becoming defensive about their product shared with Tamura that the problem might be that he was combing the wrong market. They suggested he go to America
Tamura had no idea which company to pursue, so he asked around for any information he might be given. He found out that one company was based in New York , one in St. Louis , and one in Pittsburgh
THREE MAGIC STONES
At this place he ALMOST came up empty. He went through their inventory starting with their important, expensive ones, deducing that the company would take especial care with the ones that cost many times what luxury cars sold for. Not one of those was cut right. He started systematically looking at diamonds under a carat, going through smaller and smaller ones until they were bringing him bags of 500 diamonds containing the little side stones people often refer to as “chips” in jewelry. He went through several of these until he happened upon 3 diamonds, each one weighing .03 carat, that made a perfect reflection pattern in the Firescope indicating that every facet was symmetrically placed and that beams of light had perfect paths to follow in and out of these diamonds. Sitting next to the other little diamonds, they practically jumped off the table they were so beautiful.
At the end of his research at the diamond facility in Pittsburgh, Tamura was in a position to conclude something that also shocked the diamond trade, to come to a conclusion that made the famous American diamond cutting company introspect, first itself as a company, then the cutting methods and practices it had absorbed through industry osmosis. Tamura expressed his conclusions to the company’s owner this way: “When a company such as yours, dedicated to making every diamond be cut ideally, attempts to make a perfect cut, it happens by accident 1 time in 4000.”
Tamura showed the owner the three special diamonds he found in their inventory, left his Firescope with them and said he wanted them to cut him a complete inventory of diamonds this way, intentionally, not by accident. They agreed to get started right away as they saw Tamura could turn out to be their very best client. They struggled for months and finally concluded that it was not possible to deliberately cut diamonds the way the three little ones were cut.
They were unable to do it because diamonds had grain inside them, invisible grain, that was like the grain in wood. Working with the grain works well; working against the grain, things don’t go the way you want. In diamonds working against the grain is impossible. You cannot simply put a facet wherever you want it, facing any direction you choose. You MUST work within the restrictions of the grain pattern of each diamond. This one fact is what kept the diamond industry from succeeding in making diamonds cut symmetrically for 500 years.
IS THERE SUCH A THING AS PERFECT ENOUGH?
Keppie gave up and told Tamura it was not financially feasible to continue the project and that they felt their diamonds were perfect enough.
As difficult as it is to pinpoint particular events or details that are the key elements in knowledge growth, consciousness expansion or the beginnings of movements, this event is clearly one of the catalytic key events that forever changed the industry’s approach to diamond cutting. Tamura laughed and asked what the company’s owner would say if his doctor declared his wife was “pregnant enough”. There was laughter on both ends of the phone, I am told. This funny joke actually demonstrates the way the Japanese culture views perfection. It is a yes/no proposition. Something is either perfect or it is not. There is no “perfect enough” when the impulse to manufacture comes from the heart.
Tamura decided at that moment to open his own diamond factory and make it a requirement of the factory to only allow Firescope perfect diamonds into the inventory, nothing short of that. Tamura was able to comprehend the rarity of what he sought through his own personal expeditions into diamond wallets in scores of firms’ inventories, but he had yet to learn exactly why this was so, why it was so rare.
In my next chapter I will talk about the process he began when he opened his factory and how I came to meet him and help him revolutionize the jewelry industry.
