subject: Understandings Quality Ratings Of Diamonds [print this page] "True friends are like diamonds, precious and rare. False friends are like leaves, found everywhere."
- Unknown origin.
Diamonds have always been associated with beauty, rarity and tremendous value, and not without reason. For beauty, the brilliance of a diamond is unsurpassed. For rarity, diamonds are one of the rarest naturally-occurring substances on earth, necessitating the mining of tons of rock to extract a few grams of the precious element.
And as for value, even a tiny diamond can be worth a big fortune. The Kohinoor, unarguably the most well-known diamond in past, was once considered valuable enough to pay for two days of meals for the absolute human population. And it weighs just 105 carats! (Note: A carat is a unit of measurement equal to 200 mg or 0.007055 ounces, normally used to represent weights of gemstones.)
In order to perceive the importance ratings of diamonds, one must understand the 4 Cs - carat, cut, color, and clarity.
Carat - As stated earlier, carat is simply an estimation of weight. It has its base in the carob seed used to weigh in at gemstones in medieval times due to their invariability in weights.
Cut - The most substantial factor determining the characteristic of a diamond, and the only C under human govern. A diamonds cut determines its fire, radiance, and finally, its quality. If it is cut too surface, light leaks out of the bottom; too extensive and it escapes out of the side. The cut of a diamond is graded from superlative through excellent, good, fair, below average and the "R" or recut ratting for a extremely poorly cut stone.
Color - A diamonds color grade actually refers to the deficiency of color, with genuinely colorless being graded the highest at D. The scale ranges alphabetically from D to Z, with the latter representing most coloration, mostly yellow.
Clarity - Clarity refers to the small, ordinary imperfections that occur in all but the finest diamonds. The number of imperfections, termed blemishes and inclusions, determine the clearness ratings. This is the second-most critical factor determining the property of a diamond.
To these 4Cs, one can nowadays add a fifth - certificate. Such a certificate of authenticity, also called a Diamond Grading Report, "is a statement, issued by an independent gemological laboratory, that at the time of evaluation, the diamond in question has been examined by experienced diamond graders, using various gemological instruments, and determined to contain the characteristics as stated in the report."
