When you’re thinking of purchasing a diamond, it is important to know as much as possible about how diamonds are classified. The four main categories to become familiar with are Cut, Carat, Color and Clarity. These four factors combined determine the brilliance of a diamond and ultimately, it’s value.
The Cut may very well be the most important grading aspect of a diamond. A diamond's cut is crucial to the stone's final beauty and value. It takes precise craftsmanship to cut a stone so that its proportions, symmetry and polish deliver a maximum return of light, or brilliance which is this flashing, fiery effect that makes diamonds so mesmerizing.
Polo Gem evaluates diamonds based on the GIA proportions, which demonstrate how successfully a diamond interacts with light to create the following desirable visual effects:
Brightness: Internal and external white light reflected from a diamond
Fire: The scattering of white light into all the colors of the rainbow
Scintillation: The amount of sparkle a diamond produces, and the pattern of light and dark areas caused by reflections within the diamond
With everything being equal, the price of a diamond will increase as the diamond's carat weight increases, because larger diamonds are more rare and in greater demand. However, two diamonds of equal carat weight can have very different prices if the other three Diamond Cs (Color, Clarity, Cut) are not of the same quality.
It is important to keep in mind that a diamond's true value is determined by the combined value of the quality of all of the diamond's 4Cs.
A colorless diamond allows for more light to pass through it than a colored diamond, thus emitting more sparkle and fire. It is extremely rare to find a truly colorless diamond. Therefore, the clearer, or whiter, the color of the diamond, the greater the value of the diamond will be.
Note: Fancy Color diamonds, which range in color from Blue to Green to bright Yellow and Pink, do not follow this rule and are actually more valuable for their color.
Most diamonds have flaws, though not all of them are apparent to the naked eye, or even visible under a 10x magnification. The types of inclusions that occur in diamonds may be air bubbles, cracks, and non-diamond minerals. Blemishes in diamonds include scratches, pits, and chips.
Polo Gem refers to The GIA Diamond Clarity Scale that grades diamonds under a 10x magnification. This scale divides diamonds into six categories, four of which have subcategories, for a total of eleven specific grades. Diamonds with no, or fewer, flaws have a higher value than those with less clarity due to the rarity of these diamonds.
| F | Flawless: No internal or external flaws. Extremely rare. |
| IF | Internally Flawless: no internal flaws, but some surface flaws. Very rare. |
| VVS1-VVS2 | Very Very Slightly Included (two grades). Minute inclusions very difficult to detect under 10x magnification by a trained gemologist, and not detected on the unmagnified diamond's appearance. |
| VS1-VS2 | Very Slightly Included (two grades). Minute inclusions seen only with difficulty under 10x magnification, and not detected on the unmagnified diamond's appearance. |
| SI1-SI2 | Slightly Included (two grades). Minute inclusions more easily detected under 10x magnification, and not detected on the unmagnified diamond's appearance. |
| I1-I2-I3 | Included (three grades). Inclusions visible under 10x magnification AS WELL AS to the human eye. We do not recommend buying diamonds in any of these grades. |
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