PEOPLE ALWAYS CONFUSE COLOR AND CLARITY
DON'T CONFUSE COLOR AND CLARITY - THERE'S A BIG DIFFERENCE!
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All the time I get people coming into the store that have been out shopping and comparing diamonds…
I LOVE THAT!
But then, I quickly find out that as much as they’re trying to decipher all the numbers and letter grades of the 4C’s, they aren’t doing a very good job at it.
Because they’re always mixing up color and clarity.
For example:
One guy last week comes in and is looking for an “I clarity” diamond.
I pull an I1 clarity certified diamond out of the case and proceed to show him.
He says “I can see inclusions in the stone.“
I explain to him that “That’s what I clarity means, eye-visible inclusions.“
He says the one he looked at earlier didn’t have visible flaws.
I ask more about the quality…
He says that the color of the diamond was “S1“…
“Oh,” I get it…
“SI1 is the clarity, I is the color.“
Now it all makes sense.
There’s a BIG DIFFERENCE!
It’s almost like night and day, see an SI1 diamond and I1 diamond below…
Crazy difference, right?
But many times, customers really get them confused to the point where they have NO IDEA what they’re comparing.
“I think it was ‘V‘ clarity and ‘white‘ color.”
Which could mean “VVS1, VVS2, VS1, VS2 clarity, as well as D-E-F-G-H-I-J color”.
That could be THOUSANDS of different diamond combinations.
So unless you really know…
YOU WILL PROBABLY GET RIPPED OFF!
It gets nearly impossible to really compare quality, when you’re trying to recall all the different diamonds you’ve seen and heard all day long.
If you truly want to compare stones, and not get I, F, mixed up with IF, or I, or F (HUGE DIFFERENCE in LOOKS and PRICE), then get your facts straight.
Write it all down
Get the diamond quality in writing. Have them put it on the back of a business card. That way you have the store, salesperson, exact diamond quality and price all for quick recall and comparison.
Because F3, or SV, or D2 sounds more like bingo or battleship… Not diamond clarity or color.
Diamond color grades:
To get familiar with the color grades again, look at the chart below…
Diamond clarity grades:
And to see the clarity grades, see the image below…
Try not to confuse them, because as you saw in the example above, it could be thousands of dollars different, and it could go from getting a really nice diamond, to getting a poor, low quality one.
My recommendation:
Buy the diamond quality as shown here:
- SI1 or higher in clarity
- G-H or higher in color
- GIA certified (NOT EGL or IGI)
- And whatever carat weight you can afford (1 carats are the “dream carat weight“)
Like these big beautiful diamonds HERE at James Allen.
James Allen lists everything about the diamond, and you even get to see the real stone under magnification. And because they’re online, you save tons of money because you don’t pay overhead!
It doesn’t get any better than that.
Cheers! :)
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I promise to keep this short! Some time ago, I was in that great big “Big Box” store that every town if any size now has, and I was waiting to find out if they had a certain watch battery to put in another device that required one. I was waiting behind a very young couple, obviously of limited means, who were looking at wedding sets. The clerk, who was toting around a big case of “I’m SO knowledgeable” was waiting on them, and she had 8 or 9 sticky “jewels” on her name tag, apparently indicating how many of the store’s “training modules” she had taken and passed in jewelry. So, with the combination of attitude and certifications she was waving around, I just had to turn up the listening machine!
She was giving them the spiel, of which they obviously were oblivious, about each ring set, and I really almost spit out my drink when I heard her tell them the Clarity of the diamond in one particular set was an “I thirteen!” A what? An I 13. She then proceeded to tell the befuddled couple that it was a very good rating! Being HIGHER than an “I twelve!” Sounded like a bingo call to me! An I 13?
I thought about it for a minute, and after they went to the register, I asked another clerk, whom I knew, to show me that set that just got put back. She pulled it out for me, and I pulled the tag out. It was an I COLOR and of course an I3 on the clarity!
Apparently, our oh so confident sales clerk had been absent the day they covered reading diamond tags!!
I was sad for all the unknowing people she was going to, or had even already, mislead in their diamond purchases, even if it WAS “Big Box Land” where they purchased it.
Sigh…..
Now that’s a sad reality.