Since diamonds were first mined in ancient India over 2800 years back, they’ve been connected with power, love, wealth and prestige. Ancient Egyptians believed in the ability of the diamond and how it may connect love with eternity. Their belief was founded upon Vena Amoris (the vein of love) finger leading back once again to the heart. By wearing a diamond ring on the Vena Amoris, the ancient Egyptians passionately believed that eternal love could possibly be achieved.
Even today, throughout a lot of the world, a diamond ring worn on the next finger is viewed as a symbol of the commitment of love. So having found the’love of your life’how will you discover the special diamond that will symbolise everlasting love?
To begin with there’s a fantastic range of prices to think about from modest sums to telephone number figures that many of us can only just dream of. What is more, diamond selling price is not similar as diamond value – the difference is the gains and overheads added of the seller! It is therefore advisable prior to making any purchase to learn a tad bit more about diamonds and their intrinsic value so that you’ll have that diamond of your dreams without breaking the bank.
Whilst many people may have heard that the diamond’s value depends critically when it comes to the 4Cs: the Cut, Clarity, Carat, and Colour, few really understand how this works in practice. The carat is the weight of a diamond. One carat is 0.2 gram or 200 milligrams and hence is straightforward to measure objectively with assistance from an exact weighing scale. That is false with the other attributes. It is unfortunate that people tend to be misled into paying too much for an inferior diamond because they do not understand the other more subjective attributes.
The most important and often least understood “C” is “Cut “.To have from the raw diamond to the finished cut sparkling gemstone requires the skilled hand of a master cutter. A hard or uncut diamond is rather unimpressive set alongside the sparkling gems resulting from cutting and polishing!
The higher the CUT proportions, the higher the diamond handles light to generate sparkle. Therefore CUT is the single most significant factor affecting a diamond’s brilliance and visual fire. However, “Cut” is often confused with diamond Shape https://www.gloriousdiamonds.net/.
Diamonds can be cut into numerous shapes: 80-85% of diamonds are cut to the round brilliant diamond shape as here is the most popular. About 5-10% of diamonds are cut to the princess shape (a square shape) and the residual 5-10% are spread between the rest of the shapes e.g. emerald cut, pear shape, oval, cushion, asscher, radiant, marquise, heart, baguette…etc.
The sad truth is that 75-80% of diamonds sold anywhere are poorly proportioned to retain carat weight rather to maximise sparkle as the average person and the common vendor sells them by the carat!
Poorly cut diamonds are now worth as much as 50% significantly less than many vendors sell them at but unless you buy with expert advise you often find yourself paying more for these inferior diamonds. Hence a diamond in the hand bought with expertise at a direct from trade low price may literally have a net value that’s more than the value of higher price diamonds being sold elsewhere!
With fancy shapes like hearts, pears, marquise, there are visual clues that even a newcomer can use to identify diamonds which are too fat, too thin or too irregular. However, more expertise must judge the most popular shape, the round brilliant. At all times diamonds have the same visually round shape but will differ in their angles, proportions and depths that aren’t visually apparent especially once the diamond is occur a piece of jewellery rather than being loose. For the round shape, the solution is to purchase diamonds with the best grades for Cut proportions on independent certificates from the three most reputable independent laboratories i.e. GIA, HRD and IGI. A number of other certificates are not worth the paper they’re written on since they are either not strict enough in their grading (e.g. EGL) or not fully independent.
Another critical factor affecting diamond value is “Colour “.Most diamonds are called “colourless” which in diamond terminology ranges from actually colourless to yellowish shades. The difference between various colour grades makes a crucial difference to value although differences in shade are extremely subtle requiring expertise to judge once the diamond is loose. Few people realise that it’s impossible to accurately asses a diamond’s colour once the diamond is occur jewellery.
A very tiny percentage of diamonds have other distinct colours e.g. blue, green, yellow, orange, pink, or red. Such fancy coloured diamonds command telephone figure prices in line with their rarity.
Diamond Clarity is the residual C and refers to the presence of inclusions or imperfections in a diamond. Almost all diamonds have some imperfections as individual as the person who wears the diamond. For the purposes of jewellery, diamonds are graded by the total amount of imperfections which can be seen at x10 magnification with a jeweller’s magnifying glass. This is actually the easiest factor for most people to know and appreciate specially when viewing a diamond close-up under magnification.
Historically, the shops whether prestigious ones like Cartier and Tiffany to more modest independent retailers have already been popular because of their choice and convenience in addition to their instant fulfilment. However, branded shops have higher margins, often charging around 2-3 times the diamond trade price, to cover their higher costs of advertising/branding and high stock levels. Even modest non-branded retailers often charge double the trade price to cover their stock and premises overheads.
Hence, many shrewd shoppers nowadays prefer to get from diamond brokers (e.g. in the UK: bestdiamonds or designsbyindigo) who are able to sell with expertise from loose diamonds in addition to provide non-retail trade prices. Such diamond brokers provide a far more personalised service by cherry-picking diamonds to suit their clients budget and needs rather than just selling “stock “.
Overall diamond brokers like they are still relatively few set alongside the growth of online “diamond bucket shops” where you can simply click and order from a set of diamonds. Many mass-market shoppers are embracing these bucket shops for the convenience of shopping for via their computer screen from that they can look at pictures of tens and thousands of items online and place their order without ever conversing with a human.
Typically, such mass-market diamond retailers provide a set of diamonds owned by groups of wholesalers and allow the shopper find the diamond they need based on the specifications in the list. The shopper pays for the diamond beforehand and then a wholesaler or the retailer ships the diamond to the consumer. Because of the low overhead costs, diamond bucket shops can offer lower prices than most branded or independent jewellery shops.
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