Your Custom Text Here
The 7 Step Guide to Buying a Diamond
1. CHOOSE YOUR CARAT WEIGHT RANGE
This is probably the most important question you will ask yourself when buying a diamond, because compared to all the other factors, carat weight has the greatest effect on a diamond’s price.
2. CHOOSE YOUR DIAMOND SHAPE
The second most important issue you’ll have to figure out when buying a diamond is what diamond shape is your girlfriend expecting? The answer to this question is purely a matter of aesthetics. There’s no calculation you can make that will tell you what she wants.
3. CHOOSE THE CUT QUALITY
The first two questions simply set the stage for the real technical decisions. Now that you know how big of a stone you need and what shape it should be, you need to decide on the Cut Quality.
Cut Quality will also have a notable effect on the price of a diamond. Choosing a cut quality can be tricky, however, since cut grades are not standardized at all across the different vendors.
4. CHOOSE THE IDEAL COLOR GRADE
More so than a Diamond’s Clarity, a Diamond’s Color has a serious effect on both a diamond’s appearance and price. For recommendations as to the best color to choose for the best value, see our article about diamond color.
It is important to remember that different shapes reflect color at different strengths, so your choice of optimal color, balancing the diamond’s appearance with the diamond’s price, will depend greatly on what diamond shape you’ve chosen.
5. CHOOSE THE OPTIMAL CLARITY GRADE
As opposed to Color and Carats, I like to think about Clarity not in terms of a sliding scale of grades, but as a binary grade. What I mean by this is that all I care about when evaluating clarity is whether or not a loose diamond is clean to the naked eye.
If it’s any cleaner than that, it’s just going to cost you more money without giving you anything back in return. You’re better off buying the lowest possible clarity grade that is still clean to the naked eye and using the money you saved to either buy yourself a larger diamond or a diamond with a higher color.
6. MAKE SMART CHOICES ABOUT FLUORESCENCE, POLISH, AND SYMMETRY
These will also affect a stone’s value (but not necessarily its appearance) to some degree, although much less so than the factors mentioned above. For an in-depth discussion of each of these three factors, please see these individual articles: Fluorescence, Polish, and Symmetry.
You should consider only GIA Certified Diamonds and AGS Certified Diamonds in your search for a loose diamond.
You should stay away from IGI, EGL, and HRD Certified diamonds because we have found in our professional experience that their results cannot be relied upon due to their consistent inconsistency in grading.