If you and your intended have settled on a diamond as the stone for your engagement ring, you owe it to yourselves to take a bit of time to learn about diamonds before settling on a choice. "Diamonds are forever," after all, and anything which will be with you forever should be the finest stone your budget can manage
The more you know about what separates the different grades of diamonds, the better able you will be to find a ring which not only looks beautiful but. has the qualities which will let its value increase over time. Those qualities are commonly referred to as the "Four C's" (Clarity, Cut, Color, Carat).
Clarity
You may have heard the term "flawless" applied to diamonds, but the reality is that a truly flawless diamond is exceptionally uncommon. Nearly all diamonds have exterior or interior inclusions, and are placed in one of eight distinct grades with Internally Flawless, or IF being the most desirable, and I1 being the grade given to the least desirable diamonds, those with visible chips or inclusions.
Cut
If you are wondering why some diamonds seem to be more "brilliant " than others, the answer is that brilliance depends on the amount of white light which is emitted through the flat area on the diamond's surface. And that, in turn, depends on the skill of the jeweler who cut the diamond.
Any diamond has ideal proportions which, in the hands of a good cutter, will actually enhance the stone's clarity and color. Poorly cut diamonds will lose brilliance from white light being leaked through some of their facets. A properly cut diamond will also be alive with fire, the result of its acting as a prism to break white light into all the colors of the rainbow.
Some jewelers can even spread-cut a small stone to make it appear larger, but the fire the stone emits will be less.
Color
The color of a diamond will be assigned a grade according to standards set by the Gemological Institute of America, with colorless stones being graded "D." At the other end of the alphabet, "Z" stones will be the ones with obvious tones of gray, brown, or yellow. The legendary Hope and Tiffany Diamonds are both colored stones; the Hope is Yellow, and the Tiffany blue.
As in the case of both those magnificent stones, if a diamond is of a deep natural color, its value can actually be more than a comparable colorless stone. Irradiation can be used to intensify the hue of stones which are slightly colored so they become more noticeably yellow, blue, brown, or green but this does not add to their value.
Carats
Picture a carat as a pound, which contains sixteen ounces. Each carat contains a hundred "points," so if you are looking at jewelry and are told that a diamond is ten points, you know that means one-tenth of a carat. The points of a diamond have nothing to do with its shape or facts; they are merely a measure of its weight.
Because a carat is a measure of weight and has nothing to do with a diamond's physical dimensions, a group of diamonds of different sizes can all be one, or two, or any other number of carats. Cut is what determines a diamond's dimensions, and some diamonds which have small diameters may actually be bigger when measured for depth than those which are larger in diameter.
So with diamonds of equal color, cut, and clarity, the carats are what determine differences in value. Two one-carat diamonds will be worth less than a dingle two carat diamond of the same cut, clarity, and color.
By learning what you can about the Four C's before going on your hunt for a diamond engagement ring, you'll be certain to make a "Grade A" choice!
This article is property of RetroDJtoGo located in Houston, TX. If you're looking for a DJ in Houston for
your next event contact our Houston Wedding DJ specialists. Our Houston DJ service provides Houston disc jockeys for high-end, high-profile events.)
No comments:
Post a Comment