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The smart consumer's diamond buying guide.... |
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Diamond Buying Made Easier > Diamond Jewelry - The BasicsDiamond Jewelry - The BasicsYou are interested in buying some diamond jewelry, maybe some loose diamonds, or diamond earrings; I know that's why you are here.... I hope you took the time to read the Home and the About Us pages, it should give you some insight as to why I am here. I've already mentioned that trust will be a major component in buying diamond jewelry or loose diamonds, in buying your diamond.... the diamond that will be perfect for you. I can't tell you what diamond you should buy, an online retailer can't tell you, or can a local jeweler.... only you will know what diamond will be "the one". You will have to do a bit of study to get up to speed on the technical aspects of diamond grading.... the factors that will affect the beauty of the diamond along with setting the price. With this knowledge you will have trust, that is trust in yourself, trust that you understand enough about diamonds to make an informed choice. You will know enough that when a salesperson says something that just doesn't sound right; it will send up a flag and could help you steer clear of a bad decision. I have trust that if you keep it simple, do a bit of research (homework), you will end up with a diamond without having any "buyer's remorse". When I was a Diamond Instructor at GIA, at the beginning of a new class, I told the students that by the end of the course they will be able to completely grade a diamond in less than a minute. Some of them didn't believe me, however they were pleasantly surprised at the end of the course when they could actually grade diamonds without a problem. I'm not suggesting that you will be able to completely grade a diamond after looking at this site.... but you will have enough knowledge to be an informed consumer. So believe me.... you can do this! OK, here are the first few steps in buying diamond jewelry that you will need to take-  Review the "About The 4C's" section and get a good overview of each
of the 4Cs... along with looking at Diamond Grading Reports.
Key points to remember... - Diamond Carat Weight is pretty simple.... the more is weighs, the more it will cost, duh! There are some "magic" diamond carat weight categories where the price will jump. - There is a scale for Diamond Clarity. The SI2 (maybe) along with the I1,I2,and I3 grades are the only grades were you are able to see something inside of the diamond without magnification. As you move up or down on the scale the pricing can change anywhere from about 5 to 10%. - There is a scale for Diamond Color. When you have loose diamonds, you can just start noticing the body color at around G, once it's mounted you might see body color around H or I. The pricing will change about 5 to 10% per grade as you move up or down the scale. - When buying diamonds, Diamond Cut is the most important! Always, always try to obtain the best possible Diamond Cut. The Cut of a diamond will tend to mask a lower Clarity and/or a lower Color. In the past few years, it is now possible to get a Diamond Cut grade on some diamond grading reports, which is a real benefit to the consumer! - Diamond Grading Reports are available from large independent gemological  laboratories that will fully grade the
diamond's 4Cs along with other information. GIA, AGS, and GCAL are all top-notch labs... some EGL reports are also acceptable.
These reports are diamond quality grading reports and you should never see any prices stated by a lab. If a salesperson shows you a "grading report" and it shows a price, it is not a diamond grading report! When a price is shown it is an appraisal and it should not be taken seriously because the lab is no longer performing a service as a disinterested party. The salesperson will use this "grading report" as a sales tool.... "This grading report shows this diamond has a market value of $2,450 but we can offer it to you for $1,895!" In order to move into the next phase in learning about buying diamonds, a trip to a local jewelry store will be your next step... consider this a
little field trip that will help with the homework that you will needed to do. Please don't be intimidated!... the people in jewelry stores are some of the nicest people I know! Click here for some
guidelines in what to look for in a buying diamonds at local jewelry stores.You are going to need to look at some loose diamonds, these are diamonds that are not in a mounting. When a jeweler is buying diamonds, they will almost always buy loose diamonds, unmounted diamonds. The jeweler will then set the loose diamonds into mountings (diamond rings, diamond earrings, etc.) for their inventory or as customers buy diamond jewelry. Studying about diamond's grading factors, the 4Cs, is definitely a good thing. But what is really going to help you is when you can actually see what a 0.75ct. looks like, or a SI1 Clarity, or a G Color, along with seeing an actual Diamond Grading Report from a gemological laboratory. A few things to keep in mind... - Be up front with the salesperson....  at this point you are just checking pricing, qualities, and availability of various diamonds. You are there to look at the 4Cs and get diamond pricing info for
right now.- For now, don't give them an idea of what you are thinking of spending. Your not playing games with them, you are just gathering information. - You should try to get into the right frame of mind while you are looking at diamonds. You will need to bring your "poker face", just like the poker players you can see on TV... cool, very controlled body language, etc. If a salesperson shows you a $25,000 diamond, please don't start rolling your eyes and proceed to exclaim that it's way out of your price range.... just ask them to explain why this diamond would have such a price tag... After all you are there to learn. - Look at round diamonds only. Most jewelry stores will have a wider selection of loose round brilliant cut diamonds on hand. Fancy shaped diamonds have their own pricing structure and are a bit of a different animal at this point. - Take notes! You'll need to write down what you have seen in order to compare one jeweler to another or to some of the online retailers. I made a simple worksheet that might help you, round diamond worksheet. You should understand everything on the sheet except for the line that is the "per carat price," per ct.".... it's pretty easy to understand the idea of per carat, it is the cost of the diamond divided by the weight.... $1,508 for a 0.52ct. works out to be $2,900 per carat.When buying diamonds the per carat price is useful when you want to compare several different diamonds or the pricing from one source verses another source. We will be using it later. - Make sure that you look at some lower Clarity stones using the microscope... some of the inclusions are really interesting to look at! The high Clarity stones are kind of boring to look at! And on my part they are always much more difficult to grade! One tiny little included crystal can mean the difference between IF or VVS1 and VVS1 or VVS2... and these differences in a Clarity grade will affect the price accordingly! - Make sure that you get side by side comparisons between a higher color (D-E-F) and a stone with a touch of warmth (G-H-I-J), along with a well cut diamond (Ideal Cut) and a fair to poor cut. - You don't want to spend all day with one jeweler... they are busy and you are still just looking at this point.  Now that you have some info on diamonds that are available locally you can check online to see how the pricing
will compare. Obviously, buying diamonds online is much different. On the online diamond retailer's website you can plug in the information about the diamond you are looking for and the search engine
comes up with available diamonds.Input the info of the diamonds that you just saw at your local jeweler and see what similar stones would cost over the internet. - Let's review where we are at this point -- you have reviewed the pages on the 4Cs and diamond grading reports....
- you have actually looked at diamonds (along with looking at them under the microscope!) at a local jewelry store and have a good idea of what the 4Cs actually are and you should have looked at
grading reports for the diamonds....- you printed out the worksheet and took it with you to the jewelry store, you made notes on all the stones you looked at.... - you have gone online and seen the qualities and pricing of what is available.... At this point, in the process you should have a very clear idea of an extremely important consideration in buying your diamond.... ...the cost!Where do we go from here ? ? ? We will move from a co-educational format to a single sex education... girls on one side of the room and boys on the other! Diamonds are diamonds, so the information about the 4Cs is generic.... it doesn't matter the audience. When it comes to actually buying diamonds, it does matter who will buy the diamond.... there is a difference in the information needed. Now ladies, I don't want to sound sexist here, but I do feel that the guys just need a bit more help to get through this process of buying diamonds!  We can move on to one of the following....Diamond Jewelry - A Woman's Guide Diamond Jewelry - A Guy's Guide |
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