Pressure is good for a diamond, maybe not so good for you and your wallet up against a salesperson pushing you to spend more to get a larger commission.
Before being pushed to spend more money than you want and more than you really need to here's a break down of the four Cs and where I think you should splurge.
What is Clarity?
Clarity is talking about how clear your diamond is. Are there black carbon spots or cloudy feathers in your diamond. This is what you can see in your diamond. Most engagement rings are in the Very Slightly Included (VS) and Slightly Included (SI) range, more leaning toward the SI Clarity. Slightly included is actually near the bottom of the scale for clarity but that doesn't mean it's bad. When you're in this range you shouldn't see much, if anything at all, with your naked eye. Under a gemscope you will see the inclusions and feathers. Which, in my opinion, isn't bad at all. I personally would prefer a diamond that has these unique and identifiable characteristics, I like to think of it as your diamonds finger print. There will never be another diamond just like yours. Most women are able to recognize their diamond this way, it's actually kind of cool when you think about it.
What is Carat?
Most people are pretty familiar with this C. Carat is how large your diamond is. Another way people refer to size is points. Points are to carats and pennies are to dollars. 100 points is 1.00 carat.
Something to keep in mind, once you hit that 1.00 mark your price rises somewhat considerably. You're actually better off dropping down between .80 and .90. It still looks pretty close to a carat but it won't cost you as much. In my experience, I've sold diamonds that were .50 to 4.0 carats but most people seem to purchase between .75 and 1.25 for their center diamond.
What is Color?
Color is what most people can see with their naked eye. How much of a brown, grey but typically yellow tinge is in their diamond. The obvious goal is to have a clear diamond. (Unless you want a fancy colored diamond. A fancy color is anything that's not clear, most well known are those hot pink or really vivid yellow diamonds, but diamonds come in pretty much every color).
Most engagement rings are in the colorless to near colorless range. I've sold from D down to K. You're definitely starting to see yellow once you hit I Color though. In my opinion, unless you have eagle eyes don't bother with colorless. G is great, you're in the near colorless range so you're not paying for a colorless diamond but you're almost getting one. The graph below shows the diamonds table down, much easier to see color this way but I assure you table up, far more difficult to see color, meaning, G here looks a little bit yellowish but if you're looking at it on a hand and in a mounting you'd never know.
What is Cut?
Bet you think this is cut, right?
Nope, sorry, that's shape.
This C is the most confused one. Most people believe that Cut refers to the shape of your diamond. Doesn't help that some people in the jewelry industry do refer to them as Princess CUT and Emerald CUT.
Sorry about that guys. 🤷🏼♀️
So what is Cut REALLY?
This is where you're really going to sink your money, assuming you're purchasing a brilliant cut diamond, I will explain that further down. Cut is how well the diamond is, well, cut. The proportions and symmetry. There is actually a mathematical equation to cutting an Ideal cut diamond. Marcel Tolkowsky, an engineer and a diamond cutter studied this and figured out the perfect proportions to maximize the fire, brilliance and sparkle of a diamond.
Most diamond cutters cut a diamond to maximize size, to get the largest diamond they can from the diamond rough. When cutting an Ideal cut diamond the diamond cutter is sacrificing much of the rough to cut what might be a smaller diamond but one that is perfect. This is what you want, it's going to cost you but this is what really matters when buying a diamond. The reason this is important and why I'd tell you to drop lower on any of the other of the three Cs, especially Carat, is because you can have a flawless, colorless, five carat diamond but if its cut poorly, too deep or too shallow it's not going to sparkle and that's what every woman looks at. "Oh my god, look at the way it sparkles!" Yes, women notice size too but I promise if one has an Ideal cut half carat and one has a one carat that's cut Very Good, the smaller but Ideal cut will stand out.
In my store we actually refer to Ideal cut diamonds as "five table diamonds". You will see these diamonds sparkle from five tables away in a candle lit restaurant. To be fair, excellent isn't bad either. There's just something a little off that it can't be "Ideal".
For reference the cut scale goes,
Poor
Fair
Good
Very Good
Excellent
Ideal
This picture shows the differences in too shallow, too deep and an Ideal cut. The arrows are showing where your light is going, so your sparkle basically. Too deep you lose the light and your diamond looks smaller, all of the weight is at the bottom. So you may have bought a 1 carat but it's not going to look that size. Too shallow your diamond does look larger face up but it won't sparkle as much.
This is a non ideal vs an Ideal cut. You can see crisp lines and arrows in an Ideal cut diamond. Both of these diamonds will sparkle but the Ideal will give off more.
This shows you the view from the bottom of the diamond and the top. You can see hearts and arrows. Awww sappy much? 😍 Now this is obviously showing a round brilliant cut. There's one more thing. Brilliant and Step cuts. Brilliant cuts are far far far more sparkly but my personal favorite is actually an Emerald cut.
This is an Emerald cut diamond.
(See? There it is again Emerald CUT.)
It also happens to be a step cut. Reason it's called that is because the facets look like steps. Bet you wouldn't have guessed that. 😉
Lab Report
While it's not a part of the four Cs there is one other thing to consider, certified vs uncertified diamonds. Meaning, does your diamond have a report that goes with it. Personal preference, you're going to pay for that though. Most well know jewelry stores that I know of have the option for both but a MUCH wider selection of diamonds that have reports.
Most people have probably heard of GIA, but there are many houses that grade diamonds. The diamond grading report shown is actually AGS (American Gem Society). This is an example of what your diamonds paper work might look like. This will give you all the information about the 4 Cs for your particular diamond. The neat parts about it to me are the diamond plotting and the number.
This is the diamond plotting. This will show you where the inclusions and other imperfections are, as mentioned in Clarity, this is your diamonds finger print.
So many people are concerned with having their diamonds switched these days. Here are two ways to put your mind at ease when you take your ring in to be serviced. You just have to ask to see it under the scope and you can confirm it's your diamond.
Here's a tip they might not tell you...
Diamonds are graded by human eyes. So what looks like an H Color and SI2 Clarity to me might be a G Color and SI1 Clarity to the next person. If you're struggling between two diamonds that vary in price and YOU can't see the difference then don't sweat it. Get the "lesser quality" diamond.
Hope this helps any of you struggling with engagement ring decisions. In the end though, to any guys reading this, whatever you pick, she will love because it's a symbol of your love, dedication and a promise of forever.
Just a short rant now...
Please, by all means, go in with an idea of what you're looking for when it comes to the diamond you want and the mounting (the ring) you want to put it in BUT please don't go in thinking you know more than the person that's working behind the counter, 9 times out of 10 you don't. It would be like me telling my mechanic how to do his job when I don't know anything about cars but know the words transmission and carburetor. Doesn't mean I know what either of those really do for my car. 🤷🏼♀️
On more than one occasion I've had guys coming in looking for very specific things which is usually not a problem, sometimes it just has to be custom made.
Most memorable, though, was a man telling me about his fiancées engagement ring because he wanted to start looking for wedding bands to match it WITHOUT the engagement ring, or even a picture of the ring I was supposed to match this wedding band to. This obviously makes my job more difficult but not always impossible to at least get him on the right track. However, when he's telling me it has a knife edge shank with diamonds prong set with shared prongs on top and insisting that he's correct. Even after telling him what he's describing is not something I've ever seen in my years working in jewelry, STILL insisting he's right until I finally had to tell him "what you're saying is literally impossible there has never been nor will there ever be such a thing as a knife edge shank with diamonds ON TOP."
For those of you that feel I'm speaking another language right now, the picture above is what a knife edge shank looks like. The band of the ring, or shank, kind of comes up to a point.
1. There is no way to securely set diamonds on the top of it.
2. If you were to set diamonds there the diamonds would be set more in the ring and then it would no longer be "knife edge".
To clarify you can have diamonds on a knife edge shank, as pictured below, but again not on the top, more set sideways.
The only other way this is possible is if the diamonds are set in the ring and then past the diamond accents it tappers to a knife edge shank, shown in the picture below. When asked and shown an example of this he said that wasn't right.
This is an example of a man with just enough knowledge to be "dangerous". This man didn't know what he was talking about and using terminology that can't work.
Don't be like this guy.
End rant...
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