Find Out About Diamonds And The Best Diamond Jewelry

Do you dream of owning a large, flawless diamond one day? Ever since ancient times diamonds have been a very popular gift. In days gone by, and still today in some cultures around the world, girls would be given expensive jewelry and diamonds as part of their dowries, kings would present lavish these flawless gems on their queens, and lovers everywhere would give diamond trinkets to each other as a sign of their everlasting love and fidelity. Indeed, some historical figures are famous for their jewels. Think of the young boy king Tutankhamen, buried with huge amounts of amulets, pectorals, necklaces and rings; all made from glistening gold and lavishly studded with gemstones? Or what about Queen Marie Antoinette and her famous diamond necklace and pearls? Or the tragic young Romanov sisters, who sewed their most precious jewels, including fine diamonds, into their corsets when they were imprisoned? Because of these gemstones sewn into their corsets, when the bullets fired by their executioners in the basement of the Ipatiev House hit the Grand Duchesses, some of them deflected off the gemstones and the bullets failed to kill them outright.

Diamond jewelry in modern times is given as a present on many occasions from a baby’s first bangle or pendant for their christening, through to Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Birthdays, Graduation and Wedding Gifts. Probably the most popular and ubiquitous diamond jewelry gift is the presentation of a big rock in an engagement ring when a man proposes and asks his beloved to marry him. Popular wisdom states that a man should spend the equivalent of two months’ salary on purchasing a diamond engagement ring, and for many men it is likely to be the most expensive gift of jewelry that they will ever buy. Diamond engagement rings come in all different sizes, designs, types of stone and setting, and price, but the diamond solitaire engagement ring consistently comes out as the favourite choice for an engagement ring.

So why are diamonds such a popular choice when choosing and buying jewellery? It was Marilyn Monroe in the film who sang ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’ so let’s have a look first at what these precious stones actually are. They are an allotrope of carbon, and are renowned as being the hardest known naturally occurring mineral on Earth and no known naturally occurring substance can scratch or damage this precious stone. This makes these beautiful stones very appealing for use in a piece of jewelry, especially rings, as a diamond can be worn without any worry that it will be damaged from the rough and tumble of day-to-day living. In fact most of the diamonds mined today are used for industrial purposes, where they are valued for their hardness, ability to conduct heat, and usefulness as an abrasive.

Diamonds also can be contaminated by very few natural impurities such as boron or nitrogen, and this is what gives them their usually clear and colourless appearance. When small amounts of these impurities do appear in a diamond they produce coloured stones. So boron will colour a diamond blue, nitrogen will colour one yellow, brown stones are caused by lattice defects and you can also get ones that are pink, red, purple, green, or orange. Diamonds are formed deep in the core of the earth in intense temperature and under high pressure conditions. The precious stones are then brought to the Earth’s surface in the magma of volcanic eruptions. This magma cools to form igneous rock known as kimberlites and lamproites from which the diamonds are then extracted through mining. I once flew over the Argyle Diamond Mine in the Kimberley region of Western Australia and though it is a very impressive operation and an amazing sight to see, you have to wonder how this huge open-cast mining affects the environment?

Their use by people, both for adornment and practical purposes, is thought to stretch back as far as 4,000 years or so, when alluvial diamonds were found along the courses of rivers in India, where they were particularly favoured for embellishing religious icons. It is believed that it was Alexander the Great who brought the first diamonds to Europe, following his conquests in India. However, it was not until the Middle Ages that they were able to be cut and polished. In more ancient times, they would have been set in jewellery, religious articles and tableware as rough, uncut stones. The cutting of these precious stones started in Paris in the 15^th century, with the development of the Point Cut which followed the natural shape of an uncut stone. There was a prosperous guild in Paris for diamond cutters called the ‘Lapidaries, Jewel Cutters and Engravers of Cameos and Hard Stones’ and they resided in their own area of Paris called ‘la Courarie’. In 1458 in Bruges, Louis van Berquem realised that these gemstones can be cut using their own diamond dust. He went on to create a polishing wheel called a scaif and used symmetry for the first time in placing the facets on a diamond. There have been many famous diamonds discovered, cut and set in jewelry throughout history, such as ‘The Briolette of India’ a 90.38 carat stone brought to England by Eleanor of Aquitaine , the Hope Diamond, the Koh-i-Noor Diamond now in the British Crown Jewels, the Shah Diamond and many others. These famous gems all have interesting stories behind them and several of them are said to have been cursed.

So what determines what a good diamond is in the modern era? There are various things that you need to look at when purchasing one of these beautiful gemstones. One of the things that you need to decide on is what shape do you want your diamond to be? There are several shapes to choose from including the most popular round shaped, square shaped princess cut, the rectangular emerald-cut , the square shaped Asscher-cut , oval diamonds, marquise-cut, pear or teardrop, radiant-cut, cushion-cut and heart shaped stones. Another important thing that you want to look for in this precious stone is clarity. All diamonds have tiny, natural imperfections, but the fewer of these imperfections that are present in the stone the higher the clarity grade the gem will be given, even though the imperfections rarely affect the beauty of the stone.

The cut of a diamond is what will bring out and enhance its natural beauty. The cut is what causes it to sparkle and will give your rock its ‘wow’ factor. So go for the highest cut grade in a diamond that you can afford. If one of these gemstones is cut to incorrect proportions it can leak light out of the bottom or sides of the stone causing it to lose some of its lustre. The cuts from highest grade down are Ideal Cut, Very Good Cut, Good Cut, Fair Cut, and Poor Cut. You also need to consider the size and weight of your diamond. Weight for a precious stone is determined in carats, but it is important to remember that it is perfectly possible to have a diamond of higher cut grade but lower carat weight that seems to be bigger than a stone with a poorer cut grade but a higher carat weight.

The colour of a diamond actually refers to the grading of the whiteness of the stone, and is used to determine a it's lack of colour. The colour grade of diamonds runs from D to Z. Colourless diamonds are the most highly prized so D contains the highest grade colourless gems and grades K-Z contain stones that have some discernable yellow in them. There are also naturally coloured diamonds in pink, red blue and other colours and these are known as Fancy Colour Diamonds. They are valued for their colour, as opposed to traces of colour in what is supposed to be a clear diamond which will bring its value down. Fancy colour stones are quite rare and only one in every 10,000 or so diamonds will contain natural colour. Some mines are famous for producing coloured stones, for example the Argyle Diamond mine is famous for producing pink diamonds. The most important thing to look for in a coloured stone is the intensity and depth of the colour, as this will largely determine its value.

You can either choose to purchase your diamonds loose and then have them set in your own jewelry designs, or you can select stones that are already set in necklaces, earrings, rings, bracelets and hair ornaments. If you are rich enough, you can even get dresses and shoes studded with fabulously sparkling diamonds. It is the birthstone for those born in the month of April, so would make an excellent gift for someone born at this time of year. Wearing a diamond if it is your birthstone is said to increase your inner strength, improve your relationships and promote abundance, clarity and harmony.

So when you are choosing your diamond jewelry look out for the four Cs – cut, clarity, colour and carat. But also remember to only select a piece of jewelry that you find beautiful and appeals to you, as diamonds are a gift designed to be loved and cherished by the lucky recipient for the rest of their life. Diamonds are expensive, but their sparkle lasts forever!

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