The 4 Cs

The 4 Cs Of Diamonds

The most basic of terms in the diamond industry, and the main one you will need to deal with when searching for that precious stone, is “the 4Cs”.

When the salesman first mentions it to you, you might not know what he is talking about – “Four Seas? Sees? huh? What are you talking about?”

The 4C’s stands for the 4 diamond terms that each start with the letter C. The combination of these 4 aspects of the diamond are the main points used when coming up with the price of the diamond.

I am only going to describe these factors briefly right now, as too much information usually gets confusing to people not in the diamond industry. Many people like to give tons of information because it makes them look like they know what they are talking about. In the process they confuse the consumer, but the consumer decides to trust the seller because he is obviously an expert.

I prefer to give you enough information so you have a basic understanding of the concepts so that when you are looking to buy a diamond or piece of jewelry you will have a basic understanding of what’s going on and not be totally lost. If you want to understand it more deeply, you can do further research.

The 4Cs

The 4C’s would be:

• Cut
• Clarity
• Color
• Carat

For now I am just going to explain the basics of the 4C’s. There is much debate as to which of the 4C’s is more important, but we will save that for another article.

Cut:

The cut of the diamond is a major factor in how the diamond will look. A good cut, whose lines are symmetrical, will give off a radiance that can be stunning and brilliant. Another stone, with very similar parameters but cut poorly whose lines are not symmetrical can look like a dud, with no radiance or brilliance.

Light enters through the top of the diamond, known as the “Table” and basically bounces around off the different angles of the cuts within the diamond. It then reflects back to your eye as you look at the diamond.

If the cut is symmetrical, the amount of light reflected back will give the appearance of brilliance with a flashing effect. It might be so bright at certain angles that you will even have to momentarily look away!

When the diamond is cut with bad angles, the symmetry is off. That means when the light goes into the diamond from the top, and it bounces around reflecting off the various angles, a lot of the light will be lost and disappear through different points of the diamond rather than reflecting back outward towards your eye.

Depending on how poorly cut the stone is, will be how “flat” it looks – how little radiance shines forth out of it.

Cut is measured in terms of “Good”, “Very Good”, “Ideal” and some others. I will discuss the various specific terms in more detail later.

Clarity:

Diamonds are basically rocks mined from the ground that have been cut and polished. This is really a serious simplification of the process, but good for our purposes of simplifying the terminology. Granted it is not just a “rock” – you cannot pick up any rock int he street and polish it and make it look like a diamond. It is a special rock. But it is a rock.

Being that a diamond is really a rock, there will almost always be all sorts of marks inside the diamond. These are usually natural and were part of the formation of the rock. Sometimes these marks can be cut away during the cutting process and sometimes they are left as part of the diamond – it all depends on those evaluating and cutting the stone whether they decide to leave it in or not. They will base their decision on the size of the make, the location, how much it will affect the price by leaving it in compared to if they would have to cut the stone smaller to get it out. These marks and flaws are generally known as “inclusions”.

Obviously, the clearer the diamond with fewer internal inclusions, the higher the quality and therefore higher the price.

What are these inclusions? They might be air-bubbles, internal cracks, surface chips or scratches (sometimes the surface marks are called “blemishes” rather than “inclusions”) or other flaws.

How is the Clarity measured?

Clarity is measured by a bunch of letters. The range is from Flawless all the way to Included 3. The letters used are: F, IF, VVS1, VVS2, VS1, VS2, SI1, SI2, I1, I2, I3.

These letters stand for:

* F=Flawless
* IF= Internally Flawless (might still have surface blemishes)
* VVS1,2 = Very Very Slightly Included – these are 2 grades of measuring very slight inclusions in the diamond. You probably can’t even see these flaws with your naked eye, but only using a 10x loupe.
* VS1.2 = Very Slightly Included. Also 2 grades, and this level will also be difficult to see with your naked eye, though the flaws will be slightly larger than the VVS flaws.
* SI1,2 = Slightly Included. This also has 2 grades. The flaws are again slightly larger and are easily detectable under the magnification of a basic loupe, but also might be reasonably visible with your naked eye.
* I1,2,3 = Included. There are 3 grades of this level. The inclusions in these levels will be large enough that they are easily visible with a loupe, and almost always visible to your naked eye.

It must be stated that the general appearance of the diamond does not change depending on the level of Clarity. These are internal flaws that even at the largest stage are difficult to see and require you really “eyeballing” the stone, which is not something you do often, especially when wearing the stone in a mounted piece of jewelry.

The flaws might affect the radiance a bit as it might slightly distort the reflection of light.

The inclusions are a major factor in the grading of stones via certifying agencies.

Very often a stone can have features that make it borderline between two grading levels. Perhaps one diamondaire looking at it will consider it a VS1 and someone else might consider it a VS2. How they determine the grading greatly affects the price. To avoid such issues, a diamond can be sent to an independent certifying agency. The agency uses certain standards by which they weigh all stones according to the same levels. They determine the grade level of the stone and issue a certificate declaring that the stone is certified to be a certain grade.

When a diamond company, or you for that matter, sends out a stone to an independent certifying agency to evaluate the stone, they look at every aspect of the stone. One of the major aspects is the set of internal flaws.

Internal flaws, or inclusions (nobody likes to call it a flaw as it sounds like there is something wrong with the stone), are like human fingerprints. No two are alike. The inclusions allow the stone to be easily identifiable, as per the details on the certificate issued.

Color:

Color is a factor because it determines how much light is refracted off the stone. The less color the better because color absorbs light causing less light to refract back to your eye. The refraction is the sparkle you see when you move your ring finger around in the ought and ooooh and awww about the sparkly diamond.

The less color the diamond has, the less light absorbed by it. This means that more light passes through, bouncing off the different angles, refracting back at you. The less color means the greater the brilliance, and the greater the sparkle.

The more color a stone has, the more light is absorbed as it bounces around That means less light is refracted outward to your eye, meaning less of a brilliance and less of a sparkle.

Color is measured and graded by the alphabet, starting from D (colorless) and moving across the alphabet with each additional letter meaning slightly more color.

Most stones sold to the public are graded G through I. At these levels the color hardly affects the brilliance that you see. Less than G is extremely rare – and very expensive. Higher then I is already getting to cheaper stones that you will even be able to see the off-color with your naked eye (usually).

Carat:

Carat is the unit of weight by which a diamond is measured. When the diamond is small, you might hear them call it “points”, as in “the stone is a 15 pointer”, meaning it is 0.15 carat.

The larger the size of the stone, the more expensive it will be. Obviously the price tag will be higher as it is a larger item. I mean the price per carat goes up as well. For a stone that is just under 1 carat, let’s say 0.98 for example, you might pay $3000 for example, but to get the 2 extra points and buy a 1 carat diamond you might be paying $500 for the same stone with 2 additional points in weight. That is because the price per carat goes up at various levels.

Questions? Don’t understand something someone told you about diamonds? Not sure if you should really buy that diamond? Email me at diamonds@clarityofdiamonds.com and ask!

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