Diamonds And Precious Gems

Every individual diamond is unique. Every individual person is unique. Diamonds are graded by individuals. So it could easily be assumed that the same diamond, if graded by two different people, would receive two differing grades. This can be the case, though some more widely recognized laboratories have a greater degree of consistency across the board than smaller laboratories. In June 2013, the Rapaport Diamond Trading Network (RapNet)  got back the results from 10 diamonds graded by half a dozen different brands of diamond grading laboratories. The degree of variance between grading laboratories was not always extreme though one thing was clear: some laboratories are stricter. The GIA labs ranked as the ones demanding the highest quality for a diamond to receive a high grade. An article on RapNet's analysis was published here: http://www.diamonds.net/news/NewsItem.aspx?ArticleID=43417 There was a surprise, though, in that IGI labs were almost on par...

I found this great resource on the Gemological Institute of America's website. It has a slider which allows you to check the size of a diamond and you can even compare it to second stone to compare the difference. This slider only shows the size of round cut diamonds, but these are the most popular cut, here it is: http://gia4cs.gia.edu/EN-US/diamond-carat-weight.htm Princess cut diamonds and other fancy cuts are nice for variety, but the round cut diamond has been engineered in such a way to get the best light performance. Occasionally you may get similar shininess from other cuts if they are signature diamond cuts. But back to diamond sizes: A 1 carat round cut diamond, when cut well, will be about 6.5 mm across.   It's difficult to see this if the diamond is in a setting particularly if it is in a setting which has a lip around the entire diamond (a bezel setting). The prong settings are popular as they display more of the diamond and this allows the light to...