Diamond Quality Charts and More to Help Choose Your Engagement Ring Diamond
If you’re going to get engaged there is almost no way around doing some ring shopping, and in most cases you’ll be choosing a diamond for your girlfriend’s engagement ring. Through a nifty bit of marketing by the De Beers family of companies, most people choose diamonds for their engagement rings throughout the western world.
As an aside, Cecil Rhodes, the founder of De Beers, started out just renting pumps to the diamond mines. He grew his little operation, invested in the mines he was supplying the pumps to, and ended up owning all the diamond production facilities in the nation of South Africa. That’s a bit of shrewd investing.
A few months back, I posted on choosing a diamond for her engagement ring, and discussed the 4Cs of a diamond. These are it’s color, cut, clarity, and carat weight.
Here is more about how to choose the right diamond, so you can walk into a jewelery store without that “deer in a headlights” look or browse an online jeweler and know more about what you are looking for. Remember, you can get a great diamond for her ring without spending so much for it, if you have a bit more knowledge.
Different Diamond Cuts
Many people confuse diamond cut with it’s shape, and I discussed this a bit in my earlier post on how to choose a diamond for your girlfriends engagement ring. The cut is actually the angle and shape of the facets. Here are some of the more popular cuts, so you can actually see what they look like.
Diamond Shape
Again, this is sometimes confused with the diamond’s cut, but it is actually just what it sound’s like, the overall shape of the stone, as described by it’s outline. Here are some pictures of the more popular shapes:
Here are some of the more popular diamond shapes. Your girlfriend probably has a favorite already. Your job is to find out what it is.
Diamond Ideal Cut Proportions:
Notice how the permissible variation in tolerances for the cut decrease with quality level.
Why are the angles of a diamond cut so important?
The various cut angles determine how the stone will reflect light. That’s what gives a diamond it famous “fire” qualities that are so prized. Without these, diamonds would just be a really cool glass cutter.
If the cuts are outside the ideal angles, your girlfriend’s diamond will not have the brilliance through the sides and bottom that you want. That is because it will lose light as the light is refracted, or bent, as it goes through the diamond. The angle of the cut helps determine how which direction the light exits. The angle must be just right, and each facet angle must be consistent in order to get the brilliant diamond that most people want. That ensures the diamond has that same fire and brilliance from any side.
Here you can see why the angle of the cut is so important. The arrow represents light entering the diamond. You can see how an improper cut angle lets light “leak” out of the stone, rather than sending it back to your eye.
Look at how the cut angle affects the light path through a diamond.
Hopefully you can use this info to help pick out the diamond your girlfriend deserves. Check out my post on how to find and affordable engagement ring for strategies that can save you big money on your ring, but still get the spectacular ring she wants.
