How to Choose Loose Diamonds
A diamond is like a house, there are palaces, mansions and cottages but they are all considered to be your home. So too a diamond is the expression of your heart but they also come in any size, shape, colour or quality you can imagine.
The diamond industry in order to make conformity across the globe developed a system to classify diamonds known as the four C’s.
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Carat weight
The first stands for the Carat weight, five carats is equivalent to one gram and the origin of the word comes from the seeds of the carob tree; one carat is divided into 100 points and so a half carat stone is written as 0.50 ct. There is no standard size for diamonds, amongst some of the largest gems is the Cullinan II weighing 317.4 carats and it is currently the fourth largest polished diamond in the world. It is today set in the Imperial State Crown, part of the British Crown Jewels, belonging to the Queen of England.
In Western society it is traditionally common that one carat stones of differing qualities are used for engagement rings but frequently smaller stones are used with more fanciful settings and very often cluster rings are given where there are multiple diamonds set in a jewel where each individual stone can weigh as little as 0.02 carats.
Clarity
The second is Clarity, employs a scale to determine the inclusions and approximate place of them within a stone. The scale of acceptable quality diamonds ranges from internally flawless (IF) through to very very slightly included (VVS) and very slightly included (VS) to slightly included (SI) with sub-divisions within these grades.
These categories usually require 10 x magnification to see the flaws. There are lower qualities where the inclusions are visible to the naked eye but usually when giving a diamond to express your love, the grades used are those listed above. It is obvious that any inclusion whether they are white or black will interfere with the rays of light passing through the stone, the higher the grade the less interference.
Colour
Is an extremely important factor, the finest white is called a D and going down the alphabet reaching H are still called grades of white but the scale goes even further through faint yellow and browns till it reaches Z.
These colours and their descriptions are true within natural daylight or its equivalent but very often a diamond set in a yellow gold jewel and worn with colourful clothes and exhibited in artificial light is extremely hard to determine its true colour. Higher colour grades are proportionately more expensive and it is worthwhile considering lower grades within the white colours to get better value for money.
The last C representing the cut
Is in our opinion the most important, the mathematics of a perfect cut ensure that the physical properties of the diamond will refract and reflect the maximum amount of light giving it that romantic sparkle that makes the diamond the King of the gemstone world. Even a D colour stone that is internally flawless will not have that vivacious appeal if the cut fails to bring out that hidden life that lies within the stone.
The cut is the only one of the C’s that is induced by man, all of the other attributes are naturally found within the diamond, it is the human factor that creates the beauty of the diamond and as much as an artist determines the outcome of any work so does the diamond cutter and polisher with his experience and understanding of the given colours and clarity skilfully affect the visual effect of a stone.
*Please read here our full guide dediceted for people who have an interest in buying loose polished diamonds.
Compare the prices for several weight categories of diamonds.