How does cut affect fancy shaped diamonds?
What about fancy cut diamonds like marquise, pear, oval, heart, emerald, princess, radiant, and others? How can a consumer know a fancy-cut diamond is well cut? Due to the symmetry of round brilliant-cut diamonds, it is
much easier to formulate proportion criteria and strike an optimum balance between brilliance and dispersion. Although EGL
USA supplies extensive proportion information on its diamond certificates for fancy-cut diamonds, there is currently no universal
set of standards constituting ideal proportions for these shapes. With that said, here are some general guidelines:
Color Color is personal: some people like a diamond with an ice-cold whiteness (colorless or near-colorless), while others prefer the golden glow of a warmer color. Diamonds with no color like D, E, F, are very rare and are more expensive than near-colorless (G, H, I, J) diamonds.
Diamonds with a faint tinge of color (K, L, M, N, O) have a slightly warm color and are more affordable. For those who want a larger diamond within a certain budget, selecting diamonds with a lower color grade may be the best option.
Less color is generally preferred but "fancy" is rare. Did you know that diamonds come in every color of the rainbow? EGL USA has handled thousands of these rare "fancy colors" and carat for carat, they're the most expensive objects on the entire earth. Some of the highest prices paid per carat are for colored diamonds.
Fancy colors include brilliant yellows, steely blues, soft pinks, fiery oranges and more; there's even fancy white and black. If the color is natural, as opposed to treated, the prices of these fancies can be extremely high.
Below is the official color grading scale recognized by the international diamond trade and laboratories
like EGL USA. The scale runs in order of rarity from colorless on the left to light yellow on the right.
Clarity
Clarity refers to how free a diamond is from nature's "birthmarks,"
or tiny, generally microscopic imperfections that make each diamond unique.
Diamonds are assigned clarity grades based on what can be
detected with ten-power magnification. Most internal features (inclusions) and external features (blemishes) in the diamond
have little or no effect on brilliance and fire.
So if small clarity characteristics don't affect a diamond's
beauty, why are diamonds with higher clarity grade so expensive? It's simply because diamonds with relatively few clarity
characteristics are very rare. Fortunately, diamonds of all clarity grades and prices, including those with eye-visible inclusions,
can look beautiful depending on how well they're cut and other factors. The best advice is to look at several diamonds of
different clarity grades and let your eye be the guide!
These charts below will provide the definition of clarity
grades and give you some idea of how clarity grades compare to one another. Remember, trained professionals perform clarity
grading under ten-power binocular magnification and the average person would have a harder time locating clarity characteristics.
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