From the ground to your finger, the jewel you always wanted

Diamonds are amongst some of the most precious and beautiful jewels in the world. They are found in many different colours, sizes and can be cut into a variety of shapes before being set. They are dug from deep within the earth placed carefully into trucks tied down to Used Pallet Racking sourced from sites like https://www.rackzone.ie/pre-owned/racking and transported to different countries.

In order to be able to define a diamond worth a number of factors are taken into consideration and these are known in the industry as the ‘Four C’s’ These are Carat, Cut, Colour and Clarity.

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Carat

This is probably the most well-known term in jewellery and refers to the weight of the diamond or other precious stone or metal. The weight of a diamond when it is first mined from below the surface will be much heavier than that of the final product. This is because the rough stone is usually cut into a number of smaller ones. A carat is roughly equivalent to 0.2 grams in standard weight. In the past before the standard of carats was introduced diamonds and other precious stones were measured using carob seeds. The biggest problem with this method is that carob seeds do not grow in a uniform weight so the accuracy of the measurements was questionable.

Cut

This refers to how the rough diamond is cut into its final product. There are a variety of different cuts that determine the overall shape of the diamond. The standard cut is a round shape with 58 facets. – faces that the light can hit across the diamond. It takes professionals years to develop the skills to be able to carefully cut a diamond to enhance its natural beauty and sparkle.

Colour

The most common natural coloured diamond is yellow. Every diamond is graded in terms of colour based on the GIA Grading Scale which uses the amount of yellow that is found naturally in the diamond to determine its positioning on the scale and therefore its colour. The scale ranges from colourless to light yellow.

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Clarity

This in essence is a reflection of the diamonds purity and takes into account a number of factors including colour, nature, size, position, number. The clarity scale ranges from flawless right through to imperfect. In basic terms a flawless diamond would be considered to have no visible imperfections or blemishes when viewed under magnification of ten times normal sight. An imperfect diamond would have blemishes that are visible to the naked eye.