Diamond Education

Diamonds are sold by the four C's:

Carat, Color, Clarity and Cut which determine the value. Compromising your standards on one of the C's will lower the quality of the entire stone.

Carat

Carat weight is literally the mass of the stone on a scale, and has nothing to do with the size of the finished stone. A carat is divided into 100 points which equals 1.00 carat; i.e., 3/4 = 0.75 carat and 1/2 = 0.50 carat.

Color

Diamonds are more commonly found in the tints of brown and yellow. The closer we can come to the absence of color, the more valuable the stone becomes. Although, "fancy" colored diamonds; i.e., pink, purple, blue and intense yellow or canary are also very rare and expensive.

GIA	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z	Z+
	Colorless			Near Colorless				Faint Yellow				Very Light Yellow					Light Yellow						Fancy
	Our diamonds are available in this color range.							Diamonds are most often found in these color ranges, and are what can be found in most mall stores. Diamonds past Z in color are Fancy, considered rare, i.e. intense yellow (once called canary yellow), pink, blue and so on.

Clarity

Almost all diamonds contain natural internal characteristics and external blemishes which are referred to as inclusions. These characteristics determine the clarity. The fewer, the smaller and the location of the inclusions and/or blemishes in a diamond determine the rarity and increase the value.

(The clarity grading below are with 10x magnification)

GIA	FL	IF	VVS1	VVS2	VS1	VS2	SI1	SI2	I1	I2	I3
	Free of Inclusions: Extremely Rare		Very, Very Slightly Included: Very Very Rare		Very Slightly Included: Very Rare		Slightly Included: Rare		Imperfect
	At Vonora, we will only sell diamonds in the highest ranges of clarity.								Diamonds are most often found in these clarity ranges, and are found in your basic commercial market.

Cut

There is Cut, and then there's Cut.

Many people confuse cut with the shape of a diamond. Diamonds are cut into a number of shapes, depending on the nature of the rough stone. The most popular are round, princess, marquise, oval, pear, heart and emerald, and the choice is largely a matter of personal preference. Whatever the shape, however, a well-cut diamond is the work of a master diamond cutter. When cut to good proportions, the diamond is better able to reflect light, creating more scintillation, more sparkle. And that's a great reflection on you.