What's a Diamond

A Diamond is a carbon crystal.  Although graphite is also pure carbon, the two are quite the opposite of each other.  Diamond is the hardest stone of all, which means that it is durable to wear and that it can take a great polish where as graphite is soft and brittle.  Softer stones, all other stones, will not have such sharp (well formed) edges and the polish will wear off quicker. This is fundamental to understand because many people buy diamonds which have poor polish and don't even consider that this is the main reason why diamonds are valued.

Diamonds come in many colors and clarities.  The main colors are yellow, blue, pink, green, red, brown and colorless.  The biggest portion of natural diamonds fall into the colorless range which actually includes slightly yellow stones.  Diamonds which have enough yellow color to become desirable are considered fancy yellow and are worth much more then slightly yellow stones.  Diamonds in the colorless category are graded from D to F for colorless when looking at them face up.  Diamonds graded G to J are Very Faint Yellow when looking at them face up.  Colors K and up have easily observable amounts of yellow.  It is recommended to buy H color or better for white metals, I'd recommend G or better.

Most diamonds have some internal imperfections called inclusions.  There are many ways to call such inclusions, each specific type has its own name but it is not important for the consumer to know most of them.  It is important to realize that all diamonds which are in normal clarity range of SI or better are durable.  It is also very important to understand that diamonds of VS clarity and better have no eye visible inclusions, so no one will be able to tell a difference, without magnification, between a VS1(Very Slightly Included) diamond, a VVS1(Very Very Slightly Included) and a F(Flawless) diamond.  The difference in price is due to the rarity factor.  Do you want a diamond which is in the top 2 percent of all diamonds sold or in the top 0.3 percent?

So now you know something about diamonds. Read on...