Whether you’re searching for the perfect engagement ring or want your next piece of everyday fine jewelry, picking the best diamond you can find is essential. But with so many diamonds available from so many companies and places, how do you know which diamonds are better than the others?
The 4C’s
Fortunately, the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has created universally accepted standards that grade each diamond, helping consumers choose the best stone. Diamonds are graded on the 4Cs: color, cut, clarity, and carat. Let’s take a closer look at each of the 4Cs:
- Color: Ironically, diamond color is graded on how colorless a stone is. Diamonds can be colorless, shades of yellow, or even dark brown, but generally, the more colorless a diamond is, the better. The diamond color scale is from D-Z, with every letter in between, with D being the most colorless and Z being a light brown shade. Colored pink, blue, or red diamonds are graded on a different scale.
- Cut: Cut is one of the most critical parts of a diamond, as the cut can reflect light and give the diamond its signature sparkle. It is much more than just the shape of the diamond. However, it’s also good to familiarize yourself with different cuts (some of the more popular ones include round, diamond, emerald, oval, cushion, princess, etc.) The better a diamond is cut, the more light it reflects and the more beautiful it looks. The cut can make or break the overall value of the diamond because of this. The cut is graded based on how well the diamond interacts with light. The scale goes from fair to good to very good to ideal to super ideal, with fair being the lowest rating and super ideal being the highest.
- Clarity: All diamonds, both natural and lab-made, have some natural inclusions and blemishes inside the diamond and on the surface of the stone. Clarity refers to how many inclusions a diamond has. The clearer it is or the fewer inclusions it has, the better rating a diamond will have. Diamond clarity is graded on a scale from included to flawless, with some parts of the scale being divided. For example, an Included 1 (I1) is slightly less included than a diamond rated I2.
- Carat: Carat is the diamond’s overall weight, affecting the stone’s size. Diamonds are measured in carats, weighed to the thousandth, and rounded up to the nearest hundredth. Though jewelers all measure diamonds in carats, you may also hear them being referred to as “points.” Larger diamonds are more desirable but remember that bigger doesn’t always mean more expensive: a larger diamond with lower clarity, cut, or color ratings may be less expensive than a smaller diamond with more ideal ratings in the other 4Cs.
Lehigh Valley Jewelry & Exchange is a family-owned and operated jeweler in Allentown and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and has been proudly serving the Lehigh Valley since 1990. As your #1 referred jeweler, we take pride in being your number one source for any size, shape, quality, or color of certified diamonds perfect for every occasion.
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