Diamonds And Precious Gems

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 ...

Clarity is an important characteristic of a diamond if it is to be used in jewelry, particularly in an engagement ring , and it is important to know the clarity of a diamond before you buy one. Understanding what clarity means will give you an idea of how it affects the look of a diamond. It is actually quite easy.  We can divide this up into two categories: 1 Diamonds with visual inclusions and blemishes, 2 Diamonds that are ‘eye clean’ meaning that there are no inclusions or blemishes that can be seen with the naked eye. From there, the clarity of a diamond is further broken down into subcategories. Many people mistakenly think that diamond clarity refers to how clear it is. This isn’t so. Clarity actually refers to the internal and external imperfections of the diamond. The best diamonds, of course get a grade of FL or IF – Flawless or Internally Flawless – meaning that it is perfect. A grade of I-1, I-2 or I-3 means that the diamond has inclusions,  w...

Pricing many products for sale is generally quite easy. It goes something like this: Determine the costs of manufacturing, then the costs involved to market that item, and then mark it up by 15 – 30% or whatever the market can sustain. Simple, right? Well, pricing diamonds isn’t nearly that simple. Not at all. This is because there are so many additional factors that come into play when diamonds are priced. Diamond prices are determined first by adding the cost of the rough diamond, the cost of cutting the diamond, and all other costs necessary to turn the rough diamond into a something suitable for use in jewelry. Depending on the importance of the diamond, an independent company may be called in to certify the grade of the diamond based on color, cut, clarity, and weight. As every stage involves professionals who are paid for their work the diamond becomes more expensive each time it changes hands. When it finally reaches a retailer the price will as expected be r...

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...

The Price Of Diamonds Diamond price increases almost exponentially with diamond carat weight. Ok, not really exponentially, but there are huge differences between a 1 carat and a 2 carat diamond. This can be quite shocking to a first time diamond shopper. Larger diamonds are simply rare and it follows that they are therefore more highly prized. Of course sometimes two diamonds of equal carat weight can be sold at completely different prices. This is because the value will be based not only on size but on three other factors: Clarity, Color, and Cut. Together with the weight in Carats these make up the four defining  characteristics of diamonds, referred to throughout the diamond trade as the 4 C's. Magic Sizes Some weights are referred to as "magic sizes" : half carat, three-quarter carat, and carat.  There's little difference visually between a 0.99 carat diamond and one that weighs a full carat. Even a 0.92 ct diamond can look pretty m...

Looking at a jeweler's display window with all those sparkly diamonds in all different types of settings you could be forgiven for thinking that diamonds are pretty common. But once you realize how that diamond got to the jeweler, you may find it quite unbelievable that even one of those diamonds was found. There is a huge amount of work that is done before a diamond is ready for sale to the general public. Imagine a pile of one million diamonds. In that pile is one lonely diamond that is decent enough to be worked into a nice shape by the diamond cutter and then set into a ring by a jeweler and finally sold to a young man looking to propose to his girlfriend. However this young man wants a two carat diamond. For this we must look in another pile. This pile is much bigger than our first pile of one million diamonds. As a matter of fact it is more than twice as big. More than three times as big. Even more than four times as big. Yes, in order to find a usable 2 c...