A guide to diamond grading. How do the 4c's actually affect a diamonds appearance?

I'm Stuart from ring jewelers and this film we're going to look at the way diamonds are graded we hear a lot about the four C's but not many people actually tell you what that means in real terms when you're buying a diamond so when you look at the difference or characteristics today so starting first of all with the carat of a diamond carat is actually a weight measurement so a lot of people mistake it for size but it's actually the weight of the diamond and one carat is 0.2 of a gram and if we look at this little model of stones here it shows this different diamond weight so the smallest one there is 0.1 of a carat and we've got point one five point two of a carat that's the sort of weight that we start seeing in gauge what means being made that that's on the size and then you've got 0.25 or a quarter carat in other words third of a carat half a carat three quarters of a carat going up to a one carat diamond now that as you can see a lot of people think one carat almost like a starting point that's actually quite a large stone so that's the carat of the diamond the word carat actually came from carob seeds because people use away seeds up against their gemstones and the word carob became carat and that's how we get the carat weight measurement for diamonds so next we're going to look at the color of a diamond and how the color grade affects a stone so if we have a look on here color is graded alphabetically and there's no ABC it just starts at D so D is the perfect color for a diamond and as you go into the alphabet the diamonds get more and more of a yellowy brown color now what's really important is everybody tells you to scale but they don't really explain what that means in real terms and the thing to remember it's an incredibly subtle step between each color brain you'll only really see the color creeping in even if you've got a really keen eye around about a sort of irj color yes like yellow hue to the stone and above that if you say h or above you get a really really nice white diamond so that's quite important because lots of people have heard about this scale but they don't know really what it means in real terms so it doesn't mean that say an H color or a G color is bad redstone is still really really nice and white so that's the the calibrate of diamonds clarity and diamonds will range from a flawless diamond where there's no inclusions at or under a time to ten magnification right down to our three where the inclusions get very obvious to the naked eye like you don't need any sort of jeweler's loupe any tools to see it and just be wearing the ring and you'll see little black flecks in the stone or sometimes a little white marks known as feathers and you'll spot them with a naked eye so that's quite obvious at that stage the thing to bear in mind though although again a lot of people have heard of this scale is how subtle each step is between the sort of stages of the clarity and it's really only those bottom three the I won the eye - and the i3 that you'll see with the naked eye sometimes if it's a very very big stone way over a carat you might just about spot an SI - inclusion but generally speaking anything si - an above you need a jeweler's loupe to see it so we start with a flawless diamond there and then we have vvs1 and VVS - they refer to very very slightly included diamonds and they're incredibly tiny even through high magnification after this we've got vs1 mvs - and that just refers very slight and then after that we've got the slightly included so si 1 and si 2 and the included diamonds assay that's where it gets very obvious but really stay above there you've got a lovely diamond it doesn't mean that an SI one is a poor grade you won't be seeing any inclusions with the naked eye so again still a really nice stone so again that's flawless the Vyas VVS inclusions the BS si and then down to I one two and three and that's the clarity of a diamond so next we're going to talk about the cut of a diamond and that actually refers to two different things it's how well the stone has been cut and polished but also it's often the shape of a diamond will be referred to as the cut as well so if we look at this chart here you'll see that there's a quite descriptive sort of grading term for for how well a stone has been cut and polished and you'll have excellent which is the perfect cut polish or symmetry and very good and that's followed by good in fear and then poor now what this refers to you could have a diamond that's a superb piece of material it could be a D flawless diamond but if it's not being cut or polished very well then that can affect the light refraction so you will see on a laboratory certificate one of these grades here and they send really descriptive nothing technical and that it will just range from the perfect excellent right down to a poorly cut stone and the other version of cut as I say is is the shape of a diamonds often referred to as the cut and this box here and shows some of the the cuts of diamond that you can get there's actually lots more than this but these are the most popular cuts and we have a round brilliant cut diamond and that's probably the most popular cut of diamond that we use so lots of facets underneath the stone and on top as well and that's probably the most popular cut of diamond for both engagement rings and wedding rings alike next we have a marquise cut so a kind of a lip school cut and oval diamond you see those quite often with little clusters of stones around them or sometimes a round stone either side then we have an emerald and baguette cut very similar cut of stone and the emerald cut just has a little sham four corners there they give jewelry a really nice of Art Deco appearance because of the geometry you see in the stone not the most sort of fiery of stones because they're quite a simple cut it's almost like looking down a flight of steps when you look into an emerald cut diamond but that's an emerald cut trillions you tend to just see very small ones either side of another shape of diamonds so you don't see those so much in an engagement ring heart-shaped stones princess-cut they're another really popular cut of diamond so nice and square again lots of facets underneath like the round brilliant cuts have as well and then last of all the pair cut diamond so that's a pair cut stone so that's a bit about diamond braiding and but what's really really important is that you buy a diamond that's been independently laboratory graded and many shots will give you a rough estimate of a grade like they'll start mentioning two or three caliber aids for example and that's really a license to sell you an inferior quality stone that could be worth a lot less really so ring jewelers we tend to use gie laboratory graded diamonds they produce a report after the diamonds been graded loose that gets passed on to the customer when they buy a diamond from us so the gie laboratory reports and they have lots of detail everything we've spoken about already so the cut color and clarity and there's also things on here like the fluorescence of a diamond so fluorescence in a diamond is a bad thing that will make the stone milky even if it's a really high grade if we have a look on the chart here again and that's an example of fluorescence so under a UV light and the stronger fluorescence the more the diamond wants to almost sort of glow and but when you do get to these sort of strong and or very strong fluorescence even in normal daylight you'll see the stone starts to look a little bit milky almost like it needs a bit of a polish and but it's obviously not dirt it's just a characteristic of the stone so fluorescence in a diamond is a bad thing and the ideal fluorescence will be none at all and that's for example this diamond laboratory report here this diamond that we've actually got in front of us here has no fluorescence at all and that's another thing that's not mentioned that much in jewelry shops as well and they talk about the four C's but that's quite important too so that's a laboratory report and then just to show how that affects things in a real stone and that report is actually for this diamond here and this diamond is point nine of a carat it's an H color and it's an SI tube clarity so it just shows in real terms what a lot of those characteristics translates it if we look back at the chart here what all that means are going to refresh our memory the color grade of this diamond is an H so it's not the perfect D color but you shouldn't see any real obvious yellow in there will be quite a subtle difference so that's an H color diamond then the clarity which remember is the inclusions in the stone and this is an SI - so again not the top flawless clarity but there shouldn't be anything that you could see with the naked eye so there's slight inclusions into the SI reference and weight-wise this is a point nine carat diamond so just under a carat and as I say that's purely a weight measurement and that's really personal whether you want to go for a slightly smaller stone or a larger diamond that's a point nine HSI - that's been GI laboratory graded and as we say that's the report for that actual diamond and that's what we do at ring jewelers rather than a rough estimate you'll be a laboratory graded stone if you buy an engagement ring from us so that's how we do things that ring jeweler's any diamond over about a quarter of a carat and we'll be laboratory certificated and you'll get a diamond certificate with the ring and if you want to have a look at our rings we've always got a great selection in stock and we're based at twenty-one meetinghouse Lane in Brighton we can have a look at a lot of designs we've made but ring jewelry coat UK you

Channel: Stuart Stanley

Views: 86,222

Rating: 4.8046398 out of 5

Keywords: guide to diamond grading, guide to diamonds, the 4 c's of diamonds, the 4c's of diamond grading, diamond colour clarity cut & carat, jewellers brighton, brighton jewellers, jewellers the lanes brighton, diamond colour, diamond clarity, diamond carat, diamond cut, engagement ring guide, GIA diamonds, laboratory certificated diamonds

Id: yqTps6ZUb3g

Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 09 2016