Diamond Cut, Clarity, Colour & Carat Weight
At Becky Rowe Jewellery, quality is at the heart of the business – especially when it comes to carefully selecting the stunning centrepieces.
The 4 C's
The 4 C’s were devised in the late 1930’s as a way to describe a diamond’s characteristics consistently and clearly, and became a language that crossed borders. Now, anyone trading in diamonds from anywhere in the world will understand and use the 4 C’s.
CARAT
The weight of the diamond. A one carat diamond will weight approximately 0.2g in physical weight.
This is not to be mistaken with the size or measurements of the diamond. Different shapes of diamonds and even different diamonds of the same shape will measure differently even though the carat may be the same.
CLARITY
The clarity of a diamond will refer to it’s lack of imperfections. The cleaner a diamond, the rarer it is and therefore more valuable it is. A clarity grade is given based upon the type, size, placement and abundance of imperfections in the diamond. The chart below will explain the boundaries from one grade to another.
COLOUR
Diamond colour is graded according to how much or little yellow/brown/grey colour a diamond has. Also taken into account is the saturation and tone of the colour where seen.
The colour grading scale ranges from D to Z, where D is colourless (the rarest) and Z is extremely yellow. The chart below will illustrate the breakdown of each grade into sub sections.
CUT
This characteristic is determined only by the skill and expertise of the diamond artisan who takes a diamond on the journey from rough to polished and ready for your jewellery. The cut grading will provide you with a grading based upon the diamond’s symmetry and polish, and with round brilliant diamonds only a separate factor known as the cut. The cut for a round brilliant diamond will refer to the proportions of the diamond, ensuring all facets are placed correctly and at the correct angles for maximum light refraction.
Polish will be graded by eye and by magnification in a process similar to clarity grading to detect polishing lines caused during the fashioning of the diamond. The less polish lines the better.
Symmetry is graded by eye and also by machine. Both together will provide an accurate grading on how symmetrical the diamond is. The machinery used is state of the art within the industry and will inspect the entire diamond carefully for any anomaly. Cut grading for round diamonds is a more technical process as the angles and placement of every single facet must be taken into account. This process uses the latest technology as described with symmetry grading. Each and every surface of the diamond is mapped digitally for our inspection and grading.
4C's Content supplied by IGR http://igr-reports.com