Diamond Carat Weight
The most recognizable characteristic to the human eye is the carat weight of a diamond, or its size. Carat weight is one of the factors that weigh heavily on the price you will pay for a diamond. Since this factor is so closely linked with the cost of the diamond, the weight of diamonds are measured carefully. Industry standards require diamonds to be weighted to a thousandth of a carat and then rounded to the nearest hundredth. For example a diamond weighed at 0.657 would be rounded to 0.66 of a carat. Even though carat weight is closely linked to the cost of a diamond, the color, clarity and cut of a diamond also determines the final price.
Diamond Color
The colors of diamonds come in many variations: colorless, near colorless, faint, very light and light tints. An alphabet letter is used in grading a diamond’s color. Colorless diamonds are graded with the letters D, E or F with the letter D being the whitest. Near colorless diamonds are grading from the letter G and continue through J; and faint, very light and light tinted diamonds start at the letter K and go sequentially to the letter Z in grading. These diamonds bear a yellow or brown tint and are noticeable to the human eye. Most diamonds you see in jewelry stores are colorless or near colorless diamonds.
When grading diamonds, new diamonds are compared to diamonds of known grades to determine the color quality. This is all done under controlled standard environments to ensure quality.
Diamond Clarity
Clarity of diamonds is graded on an 11-grade scale. Flawless is the best clarity quality and I3 is the worst quality which contains flaws that may actual impair your diamond’s brilliance. The characteristics in determining the grade of a diamond are based on how many inclusions (internal flaws) and blemishes (external flaws) the diamond has. Internal and external flaws of a diamond occur during their formation. An example of an internal flaw would be a crystal formation inside the cut diamond, and an external flaw could be a fine scratch mark on the diamond’s exterior. The most readily available diamonds have clarity grades within the VS and SI category. Just like the color grading system, diamonds that fall into these categories generally do not have inclusions or blemishes noticeable to the human eye; however their microscopic flaws do affect the price.
Diamond Cut
The cut of a diamond does not refer to the shape of a diamond. A diamond can come in many different shapes, the standard round brilliant or a fancy cut, such as the cushion, emerald, heart, marquise, oval, pear or triangle. More important than the shape of the diamond, is the cut. The cut of a diamond refers to the tiny facets on a diamond which are cut to control the diamonds proportion, symmetry and polish. The cut has three attributes so that the diamond reflects light which consists of three characteristics: brightness, fire and scintillation. The brightness of a diamond is the total amount of light that gets reflected from the diamond; the fire is the dispersion of light into the colors of the spectrum; the scintillation is the sparkle you see when the diamond moves, otherwise known as light flashes.