ANOTHER KIND OF DIAMOND

Diamond professionals use a set of terms that originally included very very slightly imperfect, very slightly imperfect, slightly imperfect , and imperfect. In recent years, the term imperfect has been replaced with included. GIA uses included in its clarity grading system. The abbreviations eventually gained acceptance throughout the international diamond community. Their use is now widespread regardless of how the words they stand for translate into various languages. Very may translate to tres in French, for instance, but in France a very slightly included diamond is still a VS.

Even a country like Russia, with a completely different alphabet, uses the same abbreviations.

When a diamond interacts with light, every angle and every facet affects the amount of light returned to the eye. This is what gives it its face-up appearance. If light enters through the crown and goes out through the pavilion, the diamond will look dark and unattractive. Diamonds with different proportions and good polish make better use of the light, and will be bright, colorful, and scintillating. A well-cut diamond displays the beauty consumers expect to see in a diamond. A beautiful diamond looks the way it does because of three optical effects: There must be enough contrast between the bright and dark areas to give the pattern a crisp, sharp look.

The diamond industry has long known that some proportion combinations make light perform better than others. As a general rule, the higher the cut grade, the brighter the diamond. Under fluorescent lighting, these diamonds left to right display high, moderate, and low brightness. Shapes other than the standard round brilliant are called fancy cuts. Fancy shapes also have names of their own, based on their shapes.

The best known are the marquise, princess, pear, oval, heart, and emerald cut. Many goods are sold by weight—by the kilogram, ounce, pound, or ton. Even people who have never bought a diamond are used to the idea that weight and price are related.

Man-Made Diamonds

They understand that a larger diamond is probably more valuable than a smaller one. But there are two things that often surprise people when they start learning about diamonds and carat weight. The first is the precision with which diamonds are weighed. One ounce contains almost carats. A small paper clip weighs about a carat.

Diamond Quality Factors

The metric carat is divided into points. A point is one hundredth of a carat. Diamonds are weighed to a thousandth 0.

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Fractions of a carat can mean price differences of hundreds—even thousands—of dollars, depending on diamond quality. Over a carat, diamond weights are usually expressed in carats and decimals.

A diamond that weighs 0. The relationship between rarity, weight, and value can be surprising. People know that a pound of sugar costs twice as much as a half-pound of sugar.

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Their price depends on a number of variables—weight is just one of them. Large diamonds are more rare than small diamonds. The more scarce something is, the more it is worth. It also costs more per carat. Now, the idea of breaking with custom—however tenuous its origins—may concern you. Here are seven great options to consider. The fact that mined diamonds are literally millions and sometimes billions of years old is certainly romantic. The higher price tags on mined diamonds have more to do with sentiment and clever marketing than intrinsic value.

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Cultured diamonds also have less negative impact on the environment. Enter moissanite, a crystal that naturally occurs in meteorites, is nearly as hard, dense and scuff-resistant as a diamond, and actually has greater brilliance and fire gemologist jargon for sparkle and light-dispersion. Originally discovered in the late s , moissanite is now produced in the laboratory for a fraction of the cost of even lab-made diamonds.

And thanks to recent innovations in the way they are made, moissanite stones are tough to distinguish from natural diamonds, even for experts. Even though tanzanite is one of the rarest gems on earth 1, times rarer than diamonds a tanzanite stone can cost nearly 10 times less than a comparable diamond. And many other gems that are rarer than diamonds, including rubies, emeralds, and sapphires , are still less expensive. There are different types of settings used to hold a diamond in a ring, and here are the most popular ones:.

Prong settings hold the diamond with metal projections, usually four or six of them, although settings with more prongs are also made. Bezel settings surround the stone with a band of metal, fully or partially. Invisible settings hold diamonds in a metal framework that is underneath the stone and is not visible from the top of the ring.

The chocolate diamonds in this ring are held by an invisible setting, which is underneath them.

Different Types of Diamond Rings: A Guide

Tension settings hold the diamond between the two ends of the band by applying pressure, not by using prongs, bezels, or another type of mounting device. This is how a tension setting holds a diamond by applying pressure on it. Round diamonds are by far the most popular. Oval cuts are also popular, although not as much as round ones. There are other popular cuts that are derived from the oval cut: Rectangular cuts include the popular princess cut , the emerald cut a rectangular cut with truncated corners and the Asscher cut a square emerald cut , the cushion cut with rounded instead of sharp or cut corners , and the radiant cut.

The classic triangular cut is referred to as trillion cut , or trilliant cut.