Ranging back to the early 1950s, Max West started his business as a commodities dealer in the heart of the New York diamond district, he began traveling to many parts of the world – Europe, Africa, South America and Asia looking for sources for the gemstones and metals his customers strongly desired. He shortly transformed into an exclusive diamond distributor, selling accent diamond called melee to the largest jewelry producers of the time. Max developed many relations with vendors even partnering with them, which helped him learn and understand the ever-evolving market.
Sadly Max passed away at a young age leaving his son Larry with the family business. At 21 years of age and no diamond experience, Larry West was determined to continue what his father started. Larry made the decision to venture away from the melee business and began consolidating his inventory into higher value diamonds. However, with such a small inventory, it was difficult to compete with the larger houses at that time. So he decided to dedicate himself to unlocking the highest value of any diamond he was able to purchase. Larry discovered he could do this by re-polishing diamonds in order to maximize their characteristics. Fixing shapes, improving color, diminishing internal imperfections were just some of the ways he added value to the stones with these skills.
In the 1980’s Larry traveled to Australia where he discovered natural pink diamonds at what was then the unknown Argyle Mine. He decided to purchase these stones with his knowledge and dedication to improving diamonds; he again realized that he could also add value to these natural color diamonds by re-polishing them to show their fullest potential of color. Natural color diamonds were relatively unknown because of the rarity behind them; Larry doubled down on natural color diamonds and in a short time was able to develop his inventory to one of the largest collections of natural color diamonds in the world.
In 2007 Larry’s son Scott joined the family business. Like his grandfather and father before him, Scott has been adapting the West Business in an ever-changing world. It’s Scott’s belief that individuals want the best jewels in the world and deserve to acquire them for their appropriate value. Natural Color Diamonds are Art of Nature®.
