Common Diamond Myths Busted – Article: 1057601 at Isnare.com Free Articles

Myth: Diamonds are the rarest gems on earth.

Fact: The diamonds are presumed to be the rarest gems on earth is often due to the high prices, a belief that has been helped along by the industry. In fact, diamonds are more common that emeralds and rubies. For every carat of polished gem-quality diamond, you need to mine about 250 tons of earth. Or to put it another way, one must sift through 1000 kilograms of earth to get 5 grams of diamond. Loose diamonds are actually quite plentiful, and it is believed that there are enough for each person in the US to have a handful. However about 80% of diamonds mined, are of poor quality and used in industry for drilling, polishing and grinding other hard substances.

Myth: The bigger the diamond the better it is.

Fact: When it comes to buying diamonds a lot of people look at size first, assuming a bigger one will be more expensive and shine more. But the fact is, it’s a combination of a diamond’s cut, clarity, color and carat weight, which give value to a diamond. You can therefore have a high quality diamond which is less than a carat, priced higher than a diamond twice that size. If cut, clarity and color are at parity, then a larger carat diamond will be the more expensive and rarer one. Assuming a stone to be equal in all other ways other than weight, as carat value increases, its rarity (and therefore price) also increases. However diamond price increases exponentially, and therefore a two-carat one will be worth more than two, one-carat diamonds of equal quality.

Myth: Diamonds are the hardest substance known to man.

Fact: To begin with, diamonds have been for a very long time the hardest material known to man. On the Mohs scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the hardest, diamond is a 10. Subsequently, it was amended to being the hardest ‘naturally occurring’ substance known to man, after scientists succeeded in producing harder materials. Even more recently, two very rare natural substances have been identified as very hard materials, almost 58% harder than diamond! The first, has a similar structure to diamond, but is made up of different atoms. The second is made from carbon atoms just like diamond, but they are arranged in a different shape.

Myth: Of the 4 Cs, Clarity is the most important.

Fact: The four Cs together provide you with enough information of the value of a diamond. However if you had to determine which of the four Cs most influenced the quality, it would be the Cut. Cut is not to be confused with the shape, but refers to the proportions. While the clarity and color are naturally occurring traits, the cut determines both its sparkle and affects its carat weight. Therefore of the four Cs, the cut has the greatest influence on the price of your diamond.

A diamond can gain or lose sparkle by the way in which it is cut. Gem cutters therefore have a delicate job in choosing which aspects of the diamond to emphasize and which to hide or remove. A stone that is cut wide can appear larger, than its carat rating would imply. But such a stone would not have the ideal proportions. The cut would decrease the amount of light the diamond would reflect, thereby reducing its brilliance.