Diamond Education
Diamond education is the understanding of the 4 C’s of diamonds color, cut, carat, clarity the most important factors to understand when making a diamond purchase that impact diamond quality and price.
The 4C’s of Diamond
There are four factors that is 4Cs of Diamonds that determine the quality and price of a diamond. Which factors are most important to you, as each “C” means something different for each individual. A good understanding of the 4Cs is the best way to shop for a quality diamond. Below we take a closer look into the individual 4Cs of diamond grading all you need to know.
CUT
Cut refer to a diamond’s facets interact with light. The more facets the cut, the greater the sparkle a diamond will have. Diamond cut has the greatest effect on a diamond’s beauty. Brilliance fire and scintillation of a diamond is measured solely by the cut of the diamond. There are four grades of diamond cut: Ideal, Excellent, Very Good, Good and Poor. If you compare two diamonds of different cuts grades, you will see that the higher cut grade has significantly more sparkle.
COLOR
Diamond color is the hue of a diamond based on the diamond color scale, absence of color is determines both its value and grade. The color grade is determined the culet facing up and down set against a white surface, which grades the color on a spectrum of D (colorless) to Z (faint yellow). Diamonds come in many colors and are categorized as either white essentially colorless or fancy. Some colored diamonds occur naturally, but most are treated.
CLARITY
Diamond clarity indicates the presence or absence of inclusions and blemishes within a diamond, the fewer the inclusions, the more valuable the stone. Small imperfections on the surface of diamond are called blemishes. Diamond clarity is a grade on a scale from Flawless (FL) to Included (I1, I2, I3). Diamonds with little or no inclusions are likely a clarity rating of FL-IF or VS-VVS this are the higher quality diamond with higher priced. The facet patterns of the brilliant cut diamond shapes such as princess and round can hide certain imperfections, but the step cut shapes such as asscher and emerald have large, open tables that make inclusions more obvious.
Diamonds with lots of inclusions are less brilliant, and may even look a bit scratched or dirty to the casual observer. So, although diamonds may be found in included grades of I1, I2, and I3. While no diamond is perfectly pure, the closer it comes, the higher its value.
CARAT
The diamond carat is determined the unit of measurement of a diamond’s weight, a metric “carat” is defined as 200 milligrams. Each carat can be subdivided into 100 ‘points’ meaning a 50-point diamond weighs 0.50 carats. Diamond that weighs 0.25 carats as a ‘twenty-five pointer.’ Diamonds that are more than one carat are expressed in decimals. The larger the carat, the more expensive the diamond. The word “carat” comes from “carob seed pod,” which was historically used to measure a stone’s weight. Weight is not the only factor to consider when thinking about size. Keep in mind that a 1 carat round brilliant diamond may look smaller than a 1 carat pear cut diamond because it has smaller dimensions when viewed top-down
