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Certification
Choosing a Shape
Cut
Color
Clarity
Carats
Amazing Diamonds
Diamonds
burn brightly as symbols of love. For centuries, they have
conquered hearts, launched romances, marked anniversaries. Kings
and queens covet them. Movie stars flash them. Some of the
planet's hottest and coldest spots produce them. In story and
song, the desire for diamonds is as enduring as diamonds
themselves.
Sifting
mountains of rock, in the harshest of climates, produces rough
diamonds. A ton of diamond-bearing rock may yield half a carat.
The frozen wastes of Siberia, the desert outback of Australia,
thousands of feet below ground in Southern Africa, the desolate
reaches of
Northwest Canada--these
are the crucibles of today's diamonds. If it is earth's ability
to squeeze carbon into the hardest substance known, it is the
hand of man that coaxes out its luminous personality.
Slip a
diamond on your finger and you wear a piece of geological
history 70 million years old. Though diamonds are cut to
rigorous standards, nature endows each with its own identity.
Tiny quirks, most invisible to the naked eye, exist in the form
of specks, bubbles and feather-like lines. Among the millions of
carats mined each year, truly flawless diamonds number in the
hundreds. These rarest of beauties are the costliest.
How diamonds are cut affects their brilliance. Traditional cuts radiate
an almost incandescent spark of light. A modern version called
the Ideal cut is said to trigger a rainbow of fire-like color.
Debate over "light" and "fire" rages on. Which to buy is in the
eye of the beholder. Both can be dazzling.
CERTIFICATION : YOUR GUARANTEE OF VALUE
You may also
receive documents from other recognized certifying bodies. Look
for names like the American Gem Society, Belgium High Council,
International Gemological Institute and European Gemological
Laboratory.
The
certificate is like your passport: it identifies and attests to
the specific characteristics of your diamond. Apart from a
diagram of your diamond's special quirks or inclusions, the
certificate details its measurements and grades such
characteristics as color, clarity and cut. The certificate
assures that your diamond is what it claims to be.
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CHOOSING A SHAPE - MANY STUNNING
POSSIBILITIES
Diamonds have tops and bottoms. The shape of a diamond is
determined by the configuration of its girdle. The girdle refers
to the largest perimeter that outlines the diamond and separates
the top from the bottom. Picture what the girdle looks like from
above. That tells you the diamond's shape-- round, oval, pear or
some other. Shape will influence how a diamond is cut for
maximum brilliance. Here is what the main shapes look like:
Round |
Trillion |
Marquise |
Oval |
|
Princess |
Emerald |
Pear |
Heart |
While there
are other shapes, these are the most popular. Round brilliant
diamonds are by far the favorites, accounting for four of every
five diamonds purchased.
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CUT : SOURCE OF THE SPARKLE
How a diamond is cut--so that all of its facets work in harmony
to spark the greatest brilliance--is an art as much as it is a
science. Among the 4C's of diamond value, including clarity,
color and carat weight, cut is considered the most critical. Cut
is what unleashes a diamond's singular beauty.
A number of
special terms are used to describe the quality of a cut. It is
enough to know that very good diamonds reflect up to 90% of the
light entering from above. Good diamonds are equally well
proportioned, but their reflective powers are less than their
more highly graded relations. At the low end of reflectivity,
fair and poor diamonds may reflect no more than 40% of the
entering light.
Proportion
plays a key role. A shallow cut diamond, where the bottom half
lacks a certain depth, reflects light downward from its base. A
diamond cut too deeply will emit light from the side of its
base. Ideally cut diamonds, and therefore more perfectly
proportioned stones, reflect most of their light through their
table or top surface. This quality is the most prized and
costly.
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COLOR : WHY A "D" RATING IS DESIRED
Rarely does the absence of something add value. Not so for
diamonds, where the absence of color is nearly always the mark
of value. Diamonds purest in brilliance have no colors--reds,
blues and violets--to conflict with their sparkle. The
exception: Fancy colored diamonds that are extremely rare and
prized for their deep hues. "Fancies" have brought at auction
nearly a million dollars a carat.
Diamonds are
graded on the basis of color. The Gemological Institute of
America uses the letters "D" through "Z" to rank diamond color.
Blue white diamonds, considered absolutely colorless, carry a
top rating of "D". At bottom, diamonds with a yellowish caste
carry a "Z" rating. To the untrained eye, variations among the
leading grades are almost impossible to detect. "D"-rated
diamonds cost more than those lower on the scale.
Judging
color in the day-to-day world is often subjective. In the world
of diamonds, determining color is an extremely objective and
precise process. You would not mix "D"-rated diamonds in the
same necklace with "H"-rated gems, even though they looked
similar. Nor would you want to pay "F"-level prices for
"J"-ranked stones. That's why a certificate from the Gemological
Institute is so important when buying a diamond.
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CLARITY : DEFINING THE INNER BEAUTY
Among the four "Cs" of diamond value, "clarity" embraces the
inner appearance of diamonds. In keeping with the precise nature
of determining diamond value, clarity has its own scale of
measurement.
Nearly all
diamonds have inclusions. Bubbles, specks and lines are
inclusions that give each diamond its own inner signature. The
clarity scale accounts for these microscopic imperfections. Gems
with the fewest inclusions are the rarest and costliest.
So minute
are many inclusions that they can be seen only under 10-power
magnification. That means your diamond may contain inclusions
undetectable to the naked eye. A certificate from the
Gemological Institute of America shows their location.
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