Lapidary atelier · Idar-Oberstein · est. 1994
FACET is a four-bench atelier cutting collector stones to a tenth of a degree. We do not add the fire you see. We release it — one facet at a time, at angles the stone has kept since it cooled.
Cut anatomy
Every faceted stone, whatever its outline, is the same argument: a crown to gather light, a pavilion to return it, a girdle to survive the setting, and a culet where every decision meets. Move one angle half a degree and the stone goes quiet. These are the tolerances we keep, bench by bench, on every commission.
| Table | 53.0 % | Girdle | 1.7–3.0 % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crown angle | 34.50° | Culet | 0.0 % pointed |
| Pavilion angle | 40.75° | Total depth | 59.3 % |
The cut room
The same 3.18-carat block of Ceylon sapphire rough, planned four ways. Choose a cut and the stone on the dop is re-cut live — facet counts measured from the geometry itself, angles as they would leave the wheel. Drag the stone to turn it.
on the dop · 3.18 ct rough · Ratnapura, Ceylon
Maximum fire. The brilliant surrenders the most rough — and returns it as light.
The register
Every stone we cut is entered in the atelier register by hand, with its plan, its rough weight, and what the wheel took. Four entries, with their owners' permission.
FCT-2019-041
round brilliant · white sapphire · 2.87 ct · VVS, eye-clean · Ratnapura, Ceylon
Cut for a Geneva horologist who asked for a stone “quiet at noon, loud at dinner.” Forty-one hours at the lap; 59 % of the rough surrendered to the wheel. At delivery he held it to the window for a long moment and said nothing — which is the review we keep.
FCT-2021-067
emerald step · aquamarine · 5.61 ct · IF · Santa Maria de Itabira, Minas Gerais
Eight weeks of letters to win the rough from a dealer who had promised it elsewhere. The steps were planned so each one holds a deeper register of the same Santa Maria blue — a bathymetric chart of itself. Commissioned by a retired cartographer, who insists she can read the depth in metres.
FCT-2022-090
marquise · spessartine garnet · 3.05 ct · one silk inclusion, kept · Loliondo, Tanzania
The rough carried a flame-shaped zone of deepest mandarin at one end. Any symmetrical cut would have split it; the navette keeps the whole flame at a single point, so the stone burns brighter at its north. Its owner wears the flame turned toward her hand, where only she knows it is.
FCT-2024-113
trillion · chrome tourmaline · 2.44 ct · eye-clean · Merelani Hills, Tanzania
Cut shallow against every textbook, because the chrome green was so saturated a full pavilion went black. Forty-three facets, 37 % depth. The dealer called the plan a waste of face-up size he could have sold twice; the finished stone reads greener than his whole parcel.
On rough
“The cut is already inside the rough. My work is to disagree with the stone as little as possible.”
— Odile Brandt, master cutter · Bench I
Brandt apprenticed nine years in Idar-Oberstein before she was allowed to plan a stone of her own. The habit survives: every parcel of rough that enters the atelier spends a week under the polariscope before anyone touches a wheel. We map strain like weather. We find the windows, the feathers, the color zones — and then we wait another day, because rough read in enthusiasm is rough read wrong.
We refuse eleven parcels for every one we buy. Not because the ten were worthless, but because we could not hear a cut in them. A stone can always lose weight later; it can never gain angle. Carat is vanity. Angle is honesty. When a client asks us to save half a carat by lifting the pavilion, we decline the commission and recommend a competitor we do not respect.
O. Brandt · Bench I · FACET
Commission
One hour at the atelier or by call. You bring the occasion; we bring the trays. We ask what the stone is for, and we listen to what you do not say.
Two to six weeks of sourcing through cutters we have traded with for decades. You receive each candidate on video, turned slowly under the bench lamp.
A full cut sheet — facet diagram, every angle, predicted yield — and a 10:1 resin maquette by post, so the geometry sits in your hand before it exists.
Two to nine weeks at the bench, depending on the stone's temper. Bench notes go out every Friday. No photographs of unfinished work; the stone decides when it is ready to be seen.
Hand delivery in Idar-Oberstein or Geneva, in the tray it was cut over. With it: the register entry and the cut sheet with every angle as cut, signed at the bench.
Begin with a letter: commissions@facet.haus
Hauptstraße 47 · 55743 Idar-Oberstein · bench visits Thursdays, by appointment