Diamonds
Diamonds are the hardest naturally occurring
substance on earth and the "newest" diamonds were
formed tens of millions or even over billion years ago.
The most important information about a diamond
comes down to the four C's:
Color, Cut, Clarity, and Carat.
This page contains only a brief lesson on each of the 4 C's.
Books have been filled with tremendous amounts of information
on and about diamonds so this is just a brief touch on the subject.
If you have any question about diamonds please
feel free to come in or call and speak with our
certified Diamontologist Joseph Balcerak.
Color
With diamonds the less color, generally, the better.
Diamonds are graded on an alphabetical scale of color
ranging from D through Z.
This scale of course only applies to "white" diamonds.
Diamonds occur naturally in nearly every color.
Cut
The cut of a diamonds is what gives a diamond its fire
or brilliance. A poorly cut diamond can easily just look like a
piece of broken glass.
The fire of a diamond is created from light entering the
top of the diamond, reflecting around the inside off of
several facets, and then exiting back out the top.
For this reason diamonds can be bezel set down inside
of a ring, without the back being exposed, and still
have a fantastic sparkle.
A well cut, well proportioned diamond. (round cut)
A diamond that has been cut too deeply.
A diamond with a "squashed" or shallow cut.
The Cut of a diamond also determines its shape.
The most common shape by far is the Round or brilliant cut.
Round Brilliant cut
Some of the other common cuts are:
Clarity
The clarity of a diamond has a huge impact on the value
of the stone. The clarity rating of a diamond generally refers
to inclusions (internal flaws) but it also covers external
blemishes such as scratches or chips.
FL: Flawless
Perfect inside and out. No inclusions or blemishes visible to a
trained jeweler, even under high magnification. Very rare.
IF: Internally Flawless
Absolutely no inclusions inside of the diamond.
Only very slight surface blemishes, most often from when the stone was cut,
visible only to a trained jeweler under 10x magnification.
VVS 1 or 2: Very Very Slight inclusions
VVS1 takes a trained jeweler
10x magnification to detect the tiniest inclusion and even then
they are extremely difficult to see. The same with VVS2 but only
slightly easier to find. Nothing visible to the naked eye.
VS 1 or 2: Very Slight inclusions
VS1 the inclusions are still invisible
to the naked eye and are still somewhat difficult to find under
10x magnification. VS2 the inclusions are invisible to the naked eye
but are now easy to see with magnification.
SI 1: Slightly Included
Inclusions can now be seen with the naked eye
but they are very tiny.
SI 2: Slightly Included
Inclusions are small, but now easy to see
with the naked eye.
I 1 or 2: Included
Numerous inclusions through a large amount of the
diamond, most of which are quite obvious.
I 3: Included
Very included. The inclusions are large and
very obvious. The number of inclusions could cause the
diamond to be structurally weaker.
Carat
Carat is actually a measurement of weight, not size, but of course
the more a stone weighs the larger it is going to be.
Carat is very simple. There are 100 points in one carat.
Therefore a 75 point stone is 3/4 a carat
and a 150 point stone would be 1.5 carats.
Jewelers can give a rough estimate of a diamonds carat weight
while it is inside a ring or other piece of jewelry, but to get a
precise measurement the diamond must be un-mounted and weighed.
