Fancy and Coloured Diamonds

The most famous diamonds in the world are coloured, or fancy, diamonds. The Tiffany Diamond, which is yellow, and the Hope Diamond which is blue, are coloured diamonds. Coloured diamonds vary from red, green, purple, violet, orange, blue and pink – and most shades between. Fancy colour shades vary from faint to intense.

Treated and Synthetic Diamonds

Fancy coloured diamonds are all the rage these days. Gemologists have developed new ways to create versions that are affordable for the average person - by treating less desirable diamonds. These less desirable diamonds are treated with irradiation followed by intense heat. This turns brown and yellowish diamonds into beautifully coloured diamonds that you can afford. This produces stunning greens, blues, yellows, reds, purples and other colours. These colours are considered permanent, but there is a possibility they could change during repairs if a high heat is used.

Treatments like irradiation make it possible for more people to own these vividly coloured diamonds. Most natural coloured diamonds are rare and also extremely expensive. When shopping for coloured diamonds you need to assume that any affordable fancy colour diamond has been treated. Ask about the stone's origin and request to view a lab certificate to verify authenticity.

Synthetic coloured diamonds are another option if owning a coloured diamond is something you desire but cannot quite afford. They are real diamonds, but they are created in a lab.

Natural Diamonds
Natural fancy colour diamonds get their colouring from different trace elements present in the stones, such as nitrogen, which produces a yellow diamond. Diamonds can be coloured by exposure to radiation during its creation. An example of a diamond affected by radiation is the green coloured diamond.

Another way that a natural coloured diamond gets colour is by its inclusions. Regarded as flaws and undesirable in a colourless diamond, inclusions give unique tones and brilliant flashes of colour in a fancy colour diamond. Remember that natural fancy coloured diamonds are very expensive, any coloured diamond labeled to be sold as natural should be accompanied by a certificate from a respected grading lab.

Coloured diamonds have an amazing financial track record. The value has never decreased on wholesale level in more than 30 years. Blue and pink diamonds have doubled every 5 years of a strong economy. In the 1970’s you could have bought a very high quality blue diamond for about 50K and today the very same stone would be worth between 2 and 3 million.

How Are Diamonds Cut?

In their most natural form, diamonds are, well, quite ugly. They have no luster or shine, and in fact, look like nothing more than broken glass. A diamond must be cut, and then polished before it actually becomes a thing of beauty.

Planning and Marking

A rough diamond is first examined by a planner to determined how it should be cut to yield the best value. The planner takes into consideration of the grain and crystal structure of the diamond to mark positions where it would be cleaved or sawed by the diamond cutters.

Cleaving

Large diamonds are separated into smaller pieces, by a process known as cleaving, that are suitable for further sawing. Cleaving is also done to quickly remove large unwanted pieces (usually areas with blemishes and other imperfections) from the rough diamond. This process is important as a wrong split will ruin the diamond and reduce the value of the diamond drastically.

The cleaver carefully cut grooves into the diamond at locations marked by the planner with another diamond. He then splits the diamond along the grooves with a mallet and a metal wedge. The diamond is now ready for sawing.

Sawing

Sawing shapes the diamond into various shapes such as heart, square, or the common round shapes. A circular disk saw is used to cut it down to shape. The cutting edge of the saw is initially coated with diamond dust in order to start the first few cuts. After the first few cuts, the cutting edge of the saw will coat itself with diamond dust from the diamond that is being cut. This maintains the hardness of the saw's cutting edge.

Girdling

The diamond is further shaped and its freshly cut edges are rounded by girdling. The diamond is mounted on a lathe and another diamond is used to grind it into shape.

Faceting

A diamond lapper or scaife that is coated with diamond dust is used to cut the facets. Faceting is the final and one of the most important steps in diamond cutting where the facets of a diamond is cut. The quality of the faceting that is being done will determine the brillance and fire of the diamond. Each facet of the diamond must be carefully cut into the geometrical shapes that allow maximum refraction and reflection of incident light.

Polishing

Polishing is the final step to transform a rough diamond into a diamond that is ready for sale. A diamond lapper is used, but with a different, finer lapping disk. The diamond is then finally ready for certification grading and sales or further setting into jewellery.

How To Care For Your Diamonds

Caring for a diamond takes more than occasional cleanings. Diamonds are forever, but they can be damaged if you are not careful. By learning how to properly care for your diamond, you will ensure that your diamond is indeed forever.

First, you should take your diamond jewellery to a jeweller once a year. Have him check the mountings and prongs that hold your diamond in place. Have him make any needed repairs. This will prevent your diamond from falling out of its setting and becoming lost.

Diamond jewellery that is not being worn, or diamonds that are loose should be stored in a fabric lined jewel case, or in a jewellery box where it can be kept separate from other jewellery. Each piece should have its own compartment. This will keep diamonds from becoming scratched, and it will also keep your diamonds from scratching other jewellery as well.

Remove your diamond jewellery when doing physical work. Diamonds can be chipped and scratched easily. Also avoid allowing your diamond to come into contact with bleach or other household cleansers – this can damage or change the color of the settings and mountings, and it may even irreversibly change the color of the diamond!

4Cs - Diamond Cut

There are many different cuts of diamonds to choose from. The cut essentially refers to the shape and proportion that the diamond is cut into and this has a great impact on how the much the diamond sparkles.

Diamond Anatomy, Shapes and Cuts
The most popular cuts are heart, marquise, oval, pear, princess, round, trillion, and emerald cuts, with the round cut being the most common of all:

The shape has an impact on how much the diamond sparkles, but the actual cutting itself – when the diamond cutter actually cuts the diamond into a particular shape – also matters a great deal. If the diamond is poorly cut, it will have poor proportions and symmetry and will lose its sparkle, which is essentially based on the amount of light being reflected to the viewer's eyes. The proportion of a round diamond includes its gridle diameter and thickness, table width, crown height, pavilion depth, and culet.

Common cutting problems include a missing or off center culet, misalignment, a diamond that is too thick or too thin, cracks, or broken culets.

Choose Shape First, Followed By Cut
It is almost impossible to manually measure the proportions of diamonds in typical jewellery stores because they are either too small (in carat weight) or already set into jewellery pieces. Therefore when shopping, you should of course choose the shape that you like the best, and then look at several different diamonds of that shape to find the one with the best cut – the one that sparkles the most, in all types of lighting.

Diamond Colour

Most diamonds are in the shades of pale yellow to brown due to impurities and defects within the diamonds' crystal lattice. Hue and intensity are the main properties of diamond colour that will determine its value. These colors vary from red, green, purple, violet, orange, blue and pink – and most shades between. Fancy color shades vary from faint to intense. Natural blue and red diamonds are worth significantly more as they are very rare. Extremely pure white diamonds are also of very high value due to rarity.

White Diamonds

White diamonds are the most common type of diamond. These diamonds range from colourless to pale yellow and are graded on a D to Z scale from high to low value, D being colourless and Z being light yellow. The purer a diamond is, the whiter it appears to be under white light.

A 100% pure diamond is completely colourless, feels cold to the touch (of course, provided that it has not been under the spotlight in the display case for hours), and is simply captivating - almost like a kind of solitary emptiness that has manifested itself through Mother Nature's strive for perfection.

Treated and Synthetic Diamonds

Fancy colored diamonds are all the rage these days. Gemologists have developed new ways to create versions that are affordable for the average person - by treating less desirable diamonds. These less desirable diamonds are treated with irradiation followed by intense heat. This turns brown and yellowish diamonds into beautifully colored diamonds that you can afford. This treatment produces stunning greens, blues, yellows, reds, purples and other colors. The colors are considered permanent, but there is a possibility they could change during repairs if a high heat is used.

Treatments like irradiation make it possible for more people to own these vividly colored diamonds. Most natural colored diamonds are rare and also extremely expensive. When shopping for colored diamonds, you need to assume that any affordable fancy color diamond has been treated. Ask about the stone's origin and request to view a lab certificate to verify authenticity.

Synthetic colored diamonds are another option if owning a colored diamond is something you desire but cannot quite afford. They are real diamonds, but they are created in a lab.

Natural Coloured Diamonds
Natural fancy color diamonds get their coloring from different trace elements present in the stones, such as nitrogen, which produces a yellow diamond. Diamonds can be colored by exposure to radiation during its creation. An example of a diamond affected by radiation is a green diamond.

Another way that a natural colored diamond gets color is by its inclusions. Regarded as flaws and undesirable in a colorless diamond, inclusions give unique tones and brilliant flashes of color in a fancy color diamond. Remember that natural colored diamonds are very expensive, any colored diamond labeled to be sold as natural should be accompanied by a certificate from a respected grading lab.

Famous Diamonds
The most famous diamonds in the world are color diamonds. The Tiffany Diamond, which is yellow and the Hope Diamond which is blue are colored diamonds. Color diamonds have an amazing financial track record. The value has never decreased on wholesale level in more than 30 years. Blue and pink diamonds have doubled every 5 years of a strong economy. In the 1970’s you could have bought a very high quality blue diamond for about 50K and today the very same stone would be worth between 2 and 3 million.

Diamond Clarity

Clarity is an important aspect of a diamond, and it is important to know how to grade the clarity of a diamond before you buy one. It is actually quite easy to learn how to grade the clarity of a diamond.

There are basically two things that you must understand: Diamonds with visual inclusions and blemishes, and those that are ‘eye clean’ meaning that there are no inclusions or blemishes that can be seen with the naked eye. From there, the clarity of a diamond is further broken down into subcategories. Many people mistakenly think that diamond clarity refers to how clear it is. Clarity actually refers to the internal and external blemishes and inclusions of the diamond.

Grade	Symbol	Definition
Flawless	F	Free from all inclusions
Internally Flawless	IF	No inclusions visible under 10x magnification
Very Very Slightly Included (or Very Very Slightly Imperfect) 1	VVS1	Inclusions that are extremely difficult to spot under 10x magnification
Very Very Slightly Included 2	VVS2	Inclusions that are very difficult to spot under 10x magnification
Very Slightly Included 1	VS1	Minor inclusions that are difficult to spot under 10x magnification
Very Slightly Included 2	VS2	Minor inclusions that are relatively difficult to spot under 10x magnification
Slightly Included 1	SI1	Inclusions that are easy to spot under 10x magnification
Slightly Included 2	SI2	Inclusions that are very easy to spot under 10x magnification
Included 1	I1	Obvious inclusions that are relatively easy to spot without magnification
Included 2	I2	Obvious inclusions that are easy to spot without magnification
Included 3	I3	Obvious inclusions that are very easy to spot without magnification

The best diamonds get a grade of FL or IF – Flawless or Internally Flawless – meaning that it is perfect or near-perfect under magnification. Grades of VVS1 and VVS2 means that the diamond has very, very slight inclusions that are extremely difficult to spot even under magnification; VS1 and VS2 meaning the inclusions are relatively difficult to locate under magnification; SI1 and SI2, which means that the diamond is slightly imperfect with inclusions that are fairly easy to spot. A grade of I-1, I-2 or I-3 means that the diamond has blemishes that are easy to spot, with a grade of I-3 being the worst.

The clarity of diamonds can be improved by various techniques such as laser drilling and fracture filling. When purchasing diamonds, do take note if the diamond has been clarity-treated.