Understanding Fine Jewelry Purchasing: The Four Cs Clarified
A helpful way to learn the basics of choosing a diamond jewelry piece like an eternity ring is this guide to understanding diamond quality. Learning about diamonds can be confusing for consumers new to jewelry shopping, and this information can make the process easier.
Diamonds are formed by carbon atoms that, after being subjected to intense heat and pressure within the earth over a long period of time, crystallize into a specific arrangement. The Mohs scale, used to measure the hardness of different substances, is a 1 to 10 scale with talc rating a 1 and diamond representing 10. The next hardest substance is corundum, which is the main component comprising rubies and sapphires. However, with a rating of 9, corundum is significantly behind the diamond on this scale.
Diamond grading, which includes the evaluation of different attributes known commonly as “the four Cs”, is a set of criteria by which the value and quality of diamonds are measured.
The most important of these is the cut of the diamond. This is what makes or breaks a diamond’s beauty and worth. Diamond cut is not the same as the shape of the diamond (people often cofuse this, as in “princess cut” which is actually a shape.) Rather, cut is the precise way of angling facets of the right size to align and reflect light optimally.
Color is the next step, and this one can be easy to see. Diamond color grades range from D-Z but you won’t find much fine jewelry set with anything beyond K color. Diamonds beyond this color grade steadily decline in rarity and value as they have noticeable yellow or brownish tints. Of course, diamonds with very pronounced natural colors including bright yellows, pinks, and blues are the rarest of all and actually more valuable many types of white diamond.
Clarity is the evaluation of a diamond’s internal and external flaws. Generally speaking, flaws inside a stone are called inclusions while flaws on the surface are known as blemishes. However, for the purposes of grading, gemological labs refer to all diamond flaws as inclusions. It takes several clarity grades to reach diamonds that have inclusions the naked eye can detect, so diamonds with good cut and color and these more or less undetectable moderate inclusions can be a good buy.
Carat weight, the last of the four Cs and the trait that almost anyone can spot immediately, is the unit of measure applied to diamonds and other gems. While searching for the right piece of diamond jewelry, you may have noticed that pricing for diamonds of comparable cut, color and clarity grades increases exponentially rather than proportionally with the carat weight of the diamond. This is because finding large, good quality diamonds is less likely than finding small diamonds suitable for jewelry, or large diamonds that need bad areas cut away to form multiple smaller gems, so the value of a gem increases as the supply of gems like it decreases.
What is a diamond? See this & more by visiting the diamond & fine jewelry experts atEternityRingsAndBands.com! Their precise jewelry website provides a number of wonderful rings & an education section offering a diamond clarity chart & many other beneficial resources.. This article, Understanding Fine Jewelry Purchasing: The Four Cs Clarified is released under a creative commons attribution license.
April 18, 2011 | Posted by Christine Lila Davies
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