"Cut"

Diamonds are known for their beauty, a big part of the beauty is the bright and light capturing capacity that the diamond has. Without thus conditions the diamond loses its beauty.

No matter what’s the diamond size or shape, if the cut is not exactly the way it’s supposed to be, the diamond losses its brilliance.

 Generally shapes are divided in two, Round, and all other “fancy shapes” like marquise, pear, oval, emerald, hearts, cushions, triangles, and many more.

When it comes to “Fancy color” diamonds it is more common to see the non round shapes, that’s because the value of the fancy diamond is lower so the diamond cuter tries to get the most carat weight out of the diamond by giving it a different shape.

"Color"

Diamonds are very confusing when it comes to "Color", because most diamond appear white to the naked eye, however the truth is that except for some rare intense white diamond they all have some type of yellowish color.
The funny thing about it is that the naked eye most times can’t see the different between 2 diamonds with a slight color  difference, but the price is affected, and in some cases big time.
The Color section is divided in 2 parts, a white to yellow diamonds scale, and fancy (any other color) diamonds.
The white to yellow Diamonds come in many different levels of colors, from completely white to deep yellow.
The scale used to measure the color starts with the letter D and ends in the letter Z.
D-F are colorless diamonds, G-I are near colorless diamonds, J-K are Faint color diamonds, L-R are noticeable color diamonds, and S-Z are Obvious color diamonds
The expert has a “master stone” set of diamonds, which contains samples of one or two diamonds from each group, and he compares the diamond to his equal in the set.

"Clarity"

The “Clarity” is probably the most controversial part of the diamond value, because it’s one of the main parts where you have to rely on the “Expert”.

The “Expert” looks at the diamond with a 10x loupe (a magnifying glass used by jewelers to properly examine a diamond), and uses his skills to establish the diamonds Clarity level.

Clarity is a very wide subject which includes in it all kind of natural and in some cases unnatural defects that the diamond has, in fact the clarity in some cases helps the expert establishing the authenticity of the diamond (after all no one is perfect, and if you are there is something fishy about you).

The diamonds Clarity is divided generally to the following groups: FL, IF, VVS1, VVS2, (VVS3), VS1, VS2, (VS3), S1, S2, (S3), I1, I2, I3.

(some laboratories use different grading levels, but in our case we are going to use the GIA which are the must trusted worldwide, specially when the purpose of the information given here is for investment reasons).

This groups are divided in subgroups of 2 (and in some parts of 3), that is because the type or amount of the defects are within the same category but with some small differences.

"Carat"

“Carat” is the unit which is used internationally to measure the diamonds weight, a carat is 200 milligrams (0.0004409 pounds), and many times the professionals will refer to a diamond which is less the one carat in “points”, meaning 0.37 carats will equal 37 points etc.

It is also important to know that the bigger the diamond is the more expensive it is, not just because it’s bigger, but also because it’s rare, so a 1 carat diamond will be more expensive then 10 diamonds which are 0.10 each (not like gold for example that 10gr have the same per Gr price like 1 kilo).

It is also important to notice that 2 diamonds which are each of 1 Carat can be in 2 different sizes. Just like you can have 2 friends that weight the same, and yet one is taller than the other )because he is skinnier(, so to diamonds have diameter and height, and even if the diameter is the same it is possible that the height is different, therefore the height and diameter have to be equal for two diamonds to be the same (this subject will be discussed more in the “Cut” subject).

The Carat unit is also used to determine the purity of gold, but we’ll leave that for later.

"The 4c'z" - General introduction

“The 4c’s” are 4 basic characteristics, which all start with the letter “C”.

Carat (weight unit), Clarity, Color, Cut.

It is important to notice before we start explaining all the characteristics, that the diamonds price is composed (for the most part) from all 4 together, therefore it’s possible to have a diamond which has a perfect quality but is of a very low price.