Friday, September 7, 2012

Assessing the Superiority of a Diamond

Diamond
Diamond is a naturally occurring material, a transparent crystal which is an allotrope of carbon. It stands for its hardness and thermal conductivity apart from any other material. In point of fact, it is the hardest natural material. The typical luster characteristic is owing to its high optical dispersion, which means that it has the ability to scatter light of different colors. That's why the diamonds sparkle brilliantly. Due to its extreme hardness, it can be scratched only by another diamond, thus the shine and polish remain intact forever. Thus excels as a popular gemstone.

The quality characteristics of a diamond converge to a single term denoted as 4c. The 4c determine the significance and beauty. The 4c refer to the tetra characteristics namely, Cut, Color, Clarity and Carat. Thus to rate diamonds, experts rely on the 4c. Let's have a glance at the description of the tetra characteristics here:

Cut
The cut characteristic refers to the depth and width proportion, and the uniformity of the facets. This proportion and uniformity attributes plays a significant role in the sparkle and brilliant glitter of a diamond. If the cut is low, then it allows most of the incident light to pass down through it, leaving a little light to reflect. The result is that the gemstone appears dull, lacking brilliance. When the cut is too deep, the diamond will allow the light to pass through the sides and in this case too, it will appear unexciting, lacking sparkle. Hence, an ideal cut will reflect and scatter the light in symphony, creating optimum luster and radiance.

The uniformity of the facets too, plays a vital role in its twinkling outcome. The scintillation effect means the flash that can be visualized when the diamond is moved in the light. This upshot is resultant of a symmetrical arrangement of the facets. This proportioned alignment is crucial to a diamond's beauty.

Color
The white or colorless diamonds are most valued, noted for transparency and lack of color. Compared to white diamonds, the colored ones are discounted in price. The impurities or structural defects renders to the coloration, reducing its grade. Based on the Gemological Institute of America [GIA] color scale, they are graded from D to Z, where D-graded diamonds are pure white diamonds and the z-ranked stones are tainted with yellow or brown shade. For a non-expert, there is little or no color variation in the D-H range. Whereas, the S-Z range are slightly colored and the tint is often visible for a naked eye.

Clarity
Out of the 4c, clarity is regarded as the easiest to estimate, in the sense that an average consumer can understand it due to its straightforwardness. The inclusions and blemishes are the two defects that spoil the clarity of a perfect diamond.

Inclusions are the interior irregularities of a diamond that may be a crack or a crystal of foreign material within it, affecting the clarity. Blemishes are the exterior defects or marks, affecting the surface. The inclusions and blemishes are visible only under a powerful microscope. The GIA uses 10x power magnification to grade the clarity of a diamond. The location, color and visibility of the defects are considered, when ranking the clarity.

Carat
The carat characteristic determines the weight of diamond and is different from the term 'karat' used to measure the purity of gold. Carat is the unit of weight that is used to weigh diamonds and other gemstones. It is not necessary that gemstones of same weight are to the same size, for the reason that some crystals are closely packed and are denser than others.

Usually one carat is split into 100 points, and stones weighing less than a carat are measured in terms of points. As the carat weight of a diamond is more, so is the price. A group of smaller diamonds usually cost low than a solitary larger diamond of equivalent weight. Larger diamonds are rare and most sought for, so they are more expensive. This is so because, to produce a single well-polished and fine-cut one carat diamond, it is required to mine approximately one million diamonds.

Buying diamonds?!
I suppose that this article would have thrown some light upon the attributes of diamonds. If you sought after gemstone jewelry, don't forget to probe the jeweler about the 4c of diamond! Good luck for a perfect gemstone jewelry!



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