If you have ever entered a jewelry to buy a monile adorned from diamonds (the hardest of the minerals known with a value of 10 on the Mohs scale), there may have happened to come across the notored “Four C”that is, the factors that make up the international evaluation system on which the price of these precious stones depends. These are four “C” in English: carat (“Caliber”), colour (“color”), Clarity (“Purity”) e cut (“cut”). But how do you establish the value of a diamond? Let’s see how the “4 C” work.
Carat (“Caliber”)
Here we must immediately clarify a fundamental point: when we talk about Carat of diamonds We mean something different from god of gold. For gold, in fact, the carat measures the purity Metal: 24 carats means pure gold, 18 carat means 75% gold and so on. For diamonds, however, as for most of the precious stones, The carat is a unit of measurement of the mass which corresponds to about 200 milligrams. For example, a 5 -carat diamond has a mass of about 1 gram.
It must be said that the cost of a diamond – for the same of everything else – does not grow linearly with its mass: In other words, if a diamond has double the carats of another diamond, it will not cost the double but a little more. This behavior is slightly counterintuitive Compared to many other products that we buy in everyday life (the 1 kg detergent bottle will tend to tend a little less, in proportion, of the same detergent in the 0.5 kg bottle) and is due to the fact that The largest precious stones are also rarer.
Colour (“color”)
Imagining a diamond we are perfectly transparent. This is an ideal case, but diamonds are not always completely colorless. The color of a diamond essentially depends on the amount of impurities at the atomic level contained in its crystalline structure. A 100% pure diamond is in fact composed only of atoms of carbonbut within its crystalline structure we can find for example some atoms of nitrogenwho will tend to give the crystal a yellowish color. Other atoms can give rise to shades of colors other than yellow, but this is the most widespread coloring.
The international classification of the color of a diamond, established by ALREADY (Gemological Institute of America) provides for a scale that goes From D to Zwhere the D indicates perfect transparency while the Z indicates a yellowish diamond. As you can imagine, the more the diamond falls near the “D”, the more precious it will be, for the same of everything else.
Clarity (“purity”)
In natural diamonds – but also in synthetic diamonds – it is not uncommon to find some inclusionsthat is, small imperfections composed of other materials. Based on the number and size of these inclusions, a diamond can be classified as follows:
- FL – Flawless (“Impeccable”): the diamond has no imperfections, so it is the one closest to perfection;
- IF – Internal Flawless (“Internally impeccable”): internally there are no inclusions, but there may be small imperfections on the surface;
- VVS1 and VVS2 – Very, Very Slightly Include (“Very, very slightly included”): the inclusions are there but they are very small and therefore extremely difficult to identify;
- VS1 and VS2 – Very Slightly Include (“Very slightly included”): the inclusions are a little larger and therefore more easily identifiable;
- Si1 and si2 – Slightly Include (“Slightly included”): even larger inclusions and therefore even easier to notice;
- I1, i2, i3 – Included (“Included”): inclusions are very evident and can affect the transparency and jascolary of the diamond.
All the higher a diamond is on the scale, the more expensive it will be.
Cut (“cut”)
The cut influence the brilliancethe dispersion of the various colors of the visible spectrum and the contrast Between the white and the black caused by the reflections of the light on the various faces of the diamond. To evaluate the invoice of a cut, the form of the diamond is taken into consideration but also the number of faces, their symmetry, the polishing and other aspects that contribute to the characteristic brilliance of the crystal.
