Diamond Engagement Ring - Page 2
Now let’s explore the different types of flaws. The most common is the pinpoint, or a small white dot on the surface. The next is the carbon, similar to the pinpoint, but the dot is black. Feather flaws are small cracks on the inside of the stone. Small feathers pose no danger; however, larger feathers will grow as the diamond gets older. The cloud is a flaw in which the diamond has a hazy area of small crystals inside the diamond. The final flaw is the crystal growth, which looks like a small diamond inside a large diamond. Clarity is sometimes the last component taken into consideration when evaluating a diamond engagement ring because more than likely your friends will have a microscope to evaluate the ring themselves and the flaw cannot be seen with the naked eye.
When evaluating the color, you are trying to determine the yellowness of the diamond. Once again the most popular scale used is the G.I.A. The color is graded on a scale from D to Z, with D being totally colorless and Z being yellow. The average diamond falls somewhere between G and H. The color is determined using two methods. The first uses a comparison of a stone whose color is known to determine the color of an unknown stone. This is known as the reference set. However, the second method, the colorimeter, is more reliable. The instrument measures the optical characteristics and reports results with one third of a grade. A tip to follow when selecting a stone is to get a diamond in the D to G range if mounting the stone on platinum or white gold.
