Cut

While diamonds come in many different shapes, from round brilliants to hearts, pears and marquise, cut has to do with the proportions.

Nature determines a diamond’s color, clarity, and carat weight, the hand of a master craftsman is needed to release its fire and beauty. The cut gives each diamond its unique sparkle and brilliance by allowing the maximum amount of light to enter and reflect back out of the diamond.

When a diamond is cut to ideal proportions, light is reflected from one facet to another and then dispersed through the top of the stone. The light refracted externally will amplify and disperse the refracted light from within to provide a myriad of colors and an even concentration of light, brilliance and lustre.

Color

Colorless diamonds are extremely rare and highly valued. While many diamonds appear colorless, or white, they may actually have subtle yellow or brown tones that can be detected when comparing diamonds side by side. Diamonds were formed under intense heat and pressure, and traces of other elements may have been incorporated into their atomic structure accounting for the variances in color.

Diamond color grades start at D and continue through the alphabet. Truly colorless stones, graded D, are extremely rare and very valuable. The closer a diamond is to being colorless, the rarer and more valuable it is.

The color of a diamond is graded with the diamond upside down before it is set in a mounting. The first three colors D, E, F are often called collection color. The subtle changes in collection color are so minute that it is difficult to identify them in the smaller sizes.

Although the presence of color makes a diamond less rare and valuable, some diamonds come out of the ground in vivid “fancy” colors — well defined reds, blues, pinks, greens, and bright yellows. These are highly prized and extremely rare.

Carat Weight

The weight of a diamond is measured in metric carats. One carat is divided into 100 “points” so that a diamond of 25 points is described as a quarter of a carat or 0.25 carats.

The larger the diamond (and therefore the rarer) the more expensive per carat it will be. For example, a 1ct diamond costs much more than two 1/2ct diamonds and one 30 point diamond costs much more than 30 one point diamonds.

The Carat measurement of a diamond is actually a measurement of the Diamond’s weight rather than its size or diameter. This is important to remember as depending upon the proportions of the Cut of the diamond, some diamonds may appear to have a larger top surface area (“table”) than an ideal cut diamond but the diamonds may be of the same carat weight. Diamonds are sometimes cut in shallow proportions (see below) to make a diamond look bigger but this sacrifices the brilliance and life of the diamond and make them less valuable. See the information about Cut below for further details.

Do not confuse carat with karat. Carat refers to stone weight while karat refers to fineness of gold.

Clarity

Clarity is the term used to describe the size and number of inclusions in a diamond. Almost all diamonds contain minute traces of non—crystallised carbon, the element from which they were born. These inclusions are nature’s finger print and make every diamond quite unique. Most are not discernible to the naked eye and require magnification to become apparent.

Large inclusions interfere with the dispersion of light and therefore the diamond’s brilliance. The larger or more numerous the inclusions the less valuable the diamond. The fewer the inclusions, the rarer the stone. Each diamond will have its own unique inclusions in various positions within the diamond. VVs, Vs and Si inclusions are not visible to the naked eye, they are only visible through magnification.

Additional grading terms used for diamdonds

Finish

Finish indicates the stone’s polish and symmetry. Polish describes the care taken by the cutter to polish out any parallel lines caused by the cutting process. Symmetry refers to the alignment of facets with one another, from side to side and from top to bottom. Polish and Symmetry are rated on the following scale: excellent, very good, fair or poor.

If you would like to learn even more about diamond grading and quality standards please visit the web sites of the professional institutions below.

Shape

While the round brilliant cut diamond accounts for more than 75% of diamonds sold today there are many other shapes to choose from.

The shape of things to come in diamonds has already produced other fanciful and innovative styles such as the asscher, flower, cloverleaf, triangle and kite. Nor does it stop there. Some extreme, heavily faceted cuts and variations on standard shapes have come out from specific manufacturers.

Round Brilliant	Oval	Marquise	Pear	Heart	Emerald	Princess	Trilliant	Radiant

To find the best Diamond that fits within your price range it essentially comes down to a compromise between the 4Cs and your consideration of which factors are most important to you. You may choose a larger lower color diamond or prefer a smaller high color, cut and clarity diamond.

For more information on how to grade diamonds, we recommend visiting these websites:

Established in 1931, GIA is the world´s largest and most respected nonprofit institute of gemological research and learning.

The Institute´s scientists, diamond graders, and educators are regarded, collectively, as the world’s foremost authority in gemology.

For more information please visit the GIA web site at http://www.gia.edu/

Since 1996, the AGS Laboratories has been dedicated to protecting the consumer by grading diamonds to the highest standards.

The AGSL promotes the highest professional standards of ethics, education and service.

For more information please visit the AGS web site at http://www.agslab.com/