Jewelry Blog

>What to Look For
To begin judging the quality of diamonds you have to have an undrestanding of the 4 C’s. These are cut, clarity, color and carats. Each one of these has an effect on the cost of the diamond and fine diamonds will do will in all four areas. If three are excellent and the forth is poor then the value of the stone plummets. The diamond shape doesn’t necessarily add to the value of the diamond, but does help to add some variety.

Judging Color
The colors of diamonds are rated with an alphabet grading system that starts with “D” and ends with “Z”. Completely colorless diamonds fall in the “D” and “E” grade, while colored, fancy diamonds are at the other end of the alphabet, at “Y” and “Z”.

Judging Clarity
The clarity of a diamond refers to whether or not the diamond is clear all the way through, or whether it has tiny flaws and cloudy areas within the gemstone. It’s actually very rare to have a diamond with absolute perfect clarity and no flaws, but most diamond flaws are not visible to the naked eye. These flaws can only be seen with a magnifying device and only properly interpreted with suitable training.

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) uses a magnification of about 10x when judging diamond quality based on the clarity.

Judging Carat Weight
Carat is the term we used to describe the weight of a diamond gemstone and it’s a lessor factor in the cost of a diamond.. One carat is equivalent to 200 milligrams of weight. so 10 carats = 1 gram. A 10,000 carat diamond wouild be 1 kilogram in weight. The biggest diamond ever found was, in rough condition, about 40 grams (400 carats.)

Judging Cut
One of the most important factors in judging diamond quality is judging the cut of a diamond. It’s important because a quality cut diamond will be more brilliant and reflects light more beautifully. A nicely cut diamond will always be much more valuable than one that isn’t so well cut, even if everything else is equal.

When judging diamond quality on the cut of a diamond, look at the stone in a well lit area. If the light seems to go into the stone and bounce back, showing a sparkling reflective surface, the diamond has a good cut.
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