Saving Money Buying Diamonds

I grew up in a family that seemed to always be just scraping by. I remember on several occasions, before I was ten, when I had to give my parents the little money I had saved up, just so they could buy groceries for us, or make up the shortfall in the rent. My parents were hard working but with a big family there simply was never enough to go around. I learned from a young age not to waste things. Fast forward to today and I can probably live on the smell of an oily rag, though luckily I don't have to.

I now advise people on how to save money when shopping for a luxury item I would have never seen growing up: diamonds. I received my first accreditation with the Gemological Institute of America in 2012 and soon began to understand that there were plenty of ways someone could save money when buying an engagement ring, or any diamond jewelry for that matter. The fascinating thing (for me, anyway) was that the ways to save money were not that obvious.

Some people think that if you buy a smaller diamond that it will be cheaper. Not always. As a matter of fact there are lots of ways that small diamond can be more expensive, even more expensive than a diamond twice its weight. That might seem impossible, since everyone knows diamonds get exponentially more expensive the bigger they get. But believe it or not if you don't know what you are doing you can easily overspend. I started writing my ideas down and soon realized that the goal for most people was to get the best bang per buck. No one really wants to compromise on how the diamond looks. But they aren't sure how to save money on buying a diamond without compromising on how the diamond looks.

Yes, there always seems to be some sort of compromise involved. Either you have to choose a worse color, worse clarity, smaller size, or inferior cut. If you don't know what that means check out my book "The Complete Beginner's Guide To Diamond Engagement Rings". I know it's along title, but you get the idea what it's about, right? Now you're probably wondering "What's the main secret to saving money when buying diamond rings?" Well the answer is a little counter-intuitive. Yes you can just go for a smaller diamond, but there's a much better way. You know about different color grades that diamonds have, right? Well, there are hardly any diamonds that are completely clear. Almost every diamond, save a very small percentage, have a little color. I'm not talking about bright blue or pink or anything like that. Those are in an entirely different class, and are actually even more expensive than the type used in engagement rings. I am talking about diamonds that just don't quite look clear and colorless.

The faint color can be a little disappointing to someone who is expecting a nice, bright diamond. Now there are different levels of color. The levels go from D for completely colorless, to Z where color is very much present. Now because most people buying engagement rings and diamond studs are after a clear, colorless diamond jewelers aren't going to bother stocking diamonds that have been noted as having a Z color grade. As a matter of fact the most you will usually find is an L or sometimes in rare occasions an M color diamond. This is around the 50% mark and as you can imagine that's a lot of "darkening" in a stone that known for being clear. So here's where the secret comes in.

Diamonds exhibit an effect I like to call "magical". They gather light from their surroundings and return it to the person looking at it. The reason this happens is a result of the way a diamond has been cut. The magical property of diamonds causes them to behave as a window and a mirror. So all the facets of a diamond are acting like a window gathering light. On the opposite side of each facet, inside of the diamond, light is being reflected. Here's where the cleverness of diamond cutters comes in.

The best diamonds are cut in such a way so that light is practically amplified. That's what causes the diamond to sparkle! The light coming out of the diamond is more concentrated even though it is the same volume as the light going in. Make sense? That's only the first part. The concentration of light can result in the color of the diamond practically becoming non existent. That's right. The diamond may have been graded and been labeled a certain color, but if it has been cut in such a way that it returns light in a superior way the color will be essentially erased by the frequency of the light passing through it.

Crazy, right?

Well, if you can put two and two together you know what to do. Find a diamond that is cut in such a way to return light efficiently. These are what you would call an ideal cut diamond. And it can even be a diamond that is kind of way down on the color scale. In the United States most people look for diamonds that are a G or H color. But if you find a diamond that is cut in the way I mentioned you can get yourself a diamond that is an I, J, or even K color, and it will look even better than an average diamond of a higher, that is to say, lighter, color grade.