blood diamond

blood diamond

What Determines the Value of a Diamond?
Diamonds are commonly judged by the four Cs: carat, clarity, color, and cut.

Carat
The carat weight measures the mass of a diamond. One carat is defined as exactly 200 milligrams (about 0.007 ounce). The point unit — equal to one one-hundredth of a carat (0.01 carat, or 2 mg) — is commonly used for diamonds of less than one carat. All else being equal, the value of a diamond increases exponentially in relation to carat weight, since larger diamonds are both rarer and more desirable for use as gemstones.

Clarity
Clarity is a measure of internal defects of a diamond called inclusions. Inclusions may be crystals of a foreign material or another diamond crystal, or structural imperfections such as tiny cracks that can appear whitish or cloudy. The number, size, color, relative location, orientation, and visibility of inclusions can all affect the relative clarity of a diamond.

Color
Diamonds occur in a variety of transparent hues — colorless, white, steel, blue, yellow, orange, red, green, pink, brown — or colored black. Diamonds with a detectable hue to them are known as colored diamonds. Colored diamonds contain impurities or structural defects that cause the coloration, while pure or nearly pure diamonds are transparent and colorless.

Cut
The most important aspect about how bright a diamond is going to be, is how well it is cut. We don't mean its shape but instead how exacting, to perfect proportions the stone is cut. If a diamond is not cut to extremely precise specifications it will "leak" light out the bottom. It will also let too much light in from the bottom so that you see what is under the stone. In almost all cases this "Windowing" is very undesirable, and does not show up in a well cut diamond

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Early blood diamonds
...tells the previoiusly unknown early history of "blood diamonds". You will learn, among other things, how a leading US diamond merchant, with...
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