Diamond Self-Education
SELF EDUCATION, ON THE BASICS OF DIAMONDS.
The very cornerstone of our business revolves around helping clients make informed diamond buying decisions. Before you decide to invest, one of our diamond consultants will help you understand everything you need to know about the natural colour diamond market, allowing you to make that decision with peace of mind.
Natural Colour Diamonds, are graded under controlled conditions; a grader determines the stone's color from one of 27 hues, such as red, pink, blue and green through to brown and black. The Fancy Grade describes the stone's tone and saturation in this order: Faint, Very Light, Fancy Light, Fancy, Fancy Intense, Fancy Deep, and Fancy Vivid.
In contrast to the color grading scale for clear diamonds, which is alphabetical with D as the best color grade, Fancy Vivid is the highest grade of colour diamonds.
Colour gems with vivid colors – red, pink, orange, blue or green – are exceptionally rare and will have no fixed price.
Yellow or Champagne diamonds of extraordinary hue, intensity or tone are prized by jewellers as the most affordable of all colour gem diamonds.
THE FOUR C'S
Cut, Carat, Clarity and Colour
With the value of a rare diamond you can rest assured that in the area of diamond grading, there is nothing left to chance or approximation. It is very much an exact science, which rests firmly on pillars that are known in the industry as the 4 C's... Cut, Clarity, Colour & Carat.
CUT
It is the cut that enables a diamond to make the best use of light. When a diamond is cut to good proportions, light is reflected from one facet to another and then dispersed through the crown or the top of the stone. If the cut of the diamond is too deep, some light escapes through the opposite side of the pavilion or bottom. If the cut is too shallow, light escapes through the pavilion or bottom before it can be reflected.
CLARITY
A diamond's clarity is determined by the number, nature, position, size and colour of internal characteristics called 'inclusions' and surface features called 'blemishes'. Clarity is measured on a scale ranging from pure (flawless) to heavily included (I-3).
COLOUR
Rare stones of exceptional colour – pink, red, blue, green or yellow are known as fancies and are graded as follows: Faint, Very Light, Fancy Light, Fancy, Fancy Intense, Fancy Deep and Fancy Vivid.
CARAT
Carat is the unit of weight for all gemstones. One carat is subdivided into 100 'points'. Therefore, a diamond weighing 75 points is ¾ carat in weight, or 0.75ct.
THE KIMBERLITE PROCESS - THE MAKING OF A DIAMOND
Diamonds are the crystalline form of carbon. They are created in molten rock, 75 to 120 miles (120 to 192kms) below the earth's surface and then transported to the surface in volcanic eruptions. In order to remain a diamond, and not turn into graphite or carbon dioxide, the diamond crystals must cool both near the surface and quickly.
Dark, heavy, often fragmented igneous rock that may contain diamonds in the rock matrix is a mica periodotite known as Kimberlite, an ultra basic rock type with a complex and often highly altered mineral composition. It occurs in the Kimberley district of South Africa and the Kimberley and Lake Argyle regions of Australia, as well as near Ithaca, N.Y.
The most recent "Kimberlite" volcano eruption was approximately 53 million years ago. Kimberlite pipes form when Kimberlite magma, a mixture of rock material, is pushed to the surface. Its important components include fragments of rock, large crystals, and crystallized magma that acts as glue for the mixture. It rises through the Earth's crust in a network of cracks that become Kimberlite pipes.
According to the San Diego rare History Museum, most diamonds are over three billion years old, two-thirds the age of the Earth. Raptor Trading Inc. does not deal in conflict diamonds (blood diamonds).