THE MANY CARAT WEIGHTS OF DIAMONDS

It’s no wonder that many people get confused with the Carat Weights of Diamonds.

You would think that there would be one certain consistency among Jewelers when it comes to listing and displaying how much a Diamond weighs.

But Sadly, there are many, many different ways of saying it.

You have Carats, Weights, Points, Totals, and even Fractions!

FRACTIONS???

YEP!

For example, let’s look at a Half Carat…

1/2 Carat Diamonds

Half Carat Diamonds are just that, a Half of a Carat (One Carat being 100 Points).

So a Half Carat would be 50 Points, or .50 CT.

Sounds simple enough, but it could actually be written in all of these different ways:

Half Carat	50 Points	.50 Carat
1/2 Carat	.50 CW	50 Pts
.50 DTW	0.50 DW T.W.	50/100 Carat
1/2 Ct	1/2 CW T.W.	50 ct
.50 Carat TW	1/2CTW	1/2 Carats
0.50CT	1/2 DW	0.50 DTW
50*	1/2 tw	50 pt

And, because of the FTC Guidelines that allow Jewelers to have a 7-8 Point leeway, a .44 Carat Diamond could also be listed as a Half Carat!

It can get rather tricky explaining all of this to consumers.

But, Carat Weights break down just like money. A One Dollar Bill is made up of 100 Pennies. You could also use 4 Quarters or 2 Half Dollars to make One Dollar… Right? YES!

Either way, it all adds up the same = One Dollar!

With Diamonds, there are 100 Points to a Full Carat (1.00 Carat). So 25 Points would be 1/4 Carat (A Quarter Carat), or .25 CT.

1/4 Carat Diamonds

Quarter Carats can be written like this:

Quarter Carat	25 Points	.25 Carat
1/4 Carat	.25 CW	25 Pts
.25 DTW	0.25 DW T.W.	25/100 Carat
1/4 Ct	1/4 CW T.W.	25 ct
.25 Carat TW	1/4CTW	1/4 Carats
0.25CT	1/4 DW	0.25 DTW
25*	1/4 tw	25 pt

3/4 Carat Diamonds

A 3/4 Carat Diamond could be listed as these:

Three Quarter Carat	75 Points	.75 Carat
3/4 Carat	.75 CW	75 Pts
.75 DTW	0.75 DW T.W.	75/100 Carat
3/4 Ct	3/4 CW T.W.	75 ct
.75 Carat TW	3/4CTW	3/4 Carats
0.75CT	3/4 DW	0.75 DTW
75*	3/4 tw	75 pt

1 Carat Diamonds

A One Carat Diamond could be listed like this:

One Carat	100 Points	1.00 Carat
1 Carat	1.00 CW	100 Pts
1.00 DTW	1.00 DW T.W.	100/100 Carat
1 Cts	1 CW T.W.	1 ct
1.00 Carat TW	1CTW	One Carats
1.00CT	1 DW	1.00 DT
100*	1 tw	100 pt

Misc. Carat Weights

And then you have all the other endless Diamond Carat Weights that could be written as such:

1/10 Carat	125 Points	.05 Carat
2 Carat	.58 CW	42 Pts
1.12 DTW	.24 DW T.W.	20/100 Carat
3 Cts	4 CW T.W.	.79 ct
1.50 Carat TW	.66CTW	Five Carats
1.01CT	.02 DW	0.33 DT
95*	.72 tw	175 pt

Carat Weight Examples

Here are a couple of examples taken from different Jeweler’s Catalogs that I scanned. As you can see, they feature many different ways of listing Carat Weights!

But as long as you know how Weights break down, you’ll be able to understand all the lingo, letters, numbers and verbiage better.

But wait, there’s more…

CT usually Means Carat (Usually referring to 1 Diamond).

CT TW, CTW, CTTW usually means Carat Total Weight (all the multiple Diamonds in the ring added together).

DW usually means Diamond Weight.

DTW means Diamond Total Weight (same as CTW, all the Diamonds added together).

Disclaimers

Sometimes you’ll see an asterisk next to the Carat Weights (i.e. .50CT T.W.*), that means there will be more info listed somewhere else on the brochure (usually the back page). The Fine Print generally says something to this effect “*Total Weight” and “Diamond Carat Weights are approximate“.

So hopefully this clears up some of the confusion when it comes to Carat Weights and what Jewelers call them.

Get my point? :)