April 1st, 2023
Hello, and welcome to Nelsen’s Fine Jewelry’s Official Birthstone Blog!
Each month, we’ll be taking a more in depth look at each birthstone, (or birthstones, some months have more than one!) to learn more about these colorful gems and maybe even make that special purchase just a little easier! Or, if you have always wanted to know more about yours, or someone else’s birthstone, you’re in the right place!
For the month of April, it’s only fitting that the first entry into the Birthstone Blog is our personal favorite, The Diamond! Diamonds are the bread and butter of the Jewelry Industry and for good reason, they’re simply glorious! Here, we’ll discuss the history of diamonds in the jewelry trade, what makes them so special, and the differences between Lab Diamonds and Natural. Also, we’ll see if we can answer the question as to just why exactly is the Diamond the birthstone for April?
Let’s begin with a little more background on these Crazy Carbonized Creations. Wait, carbon? Like the stuff that makes up most of all life on Earth? That Carbon? You better believe it! So if anything, the diamond is the most fitting birthstone because we’re made out of the same stuff! Let’s have a fun little experiment here, according to Wikipedia: The human body is about 18% carbon by mass. This means that a 70 kilo person contains about 12.6 kilos of carbon. If we made a diamond from all the carbon in a human body, we'd have a 12.6 kilo gem which is frankly a bit excessive. 12.6 Kilograms? Excuse me, but there is nothing excessive about a 27.7lb Diamond. At least not to me, but I digress.
Anyway, back to carbon. A natural diamond is a solid form of pure carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal. Not only does this process of being heated up and pressurized in the Earth’s crust take a very, very long time, (about 1-3 Billion years) but the end result brings us the hardest known mineral on Earth. In fact, diamonds are so hard that the only thing that can break/scratch a diamond is another diamond! Which is exactly how diamonds are cut for your jewelry! And speaking of cuts, below you’ll find a handy little layout of just what we mean by that.
So a diamond’s Cut is one of the “4 C’s of Diamond Quality” according to the GIA (Gemological Institute of America) there are 4 Defining “C’s” that make up a Diamond. So let’s talk about what those are!
Cut - As one could surmise, is the shape of the diamond that has been cut from the raw material or cut down from an existing, larger diamond. The result we achieve here is the stone that is then set in jewelry. As depicted above, there are many, many different types of diamond cuts. Talk about options!
Clarity - A diamond's clarity is in reference to the graded value of Inclusions (microscopic internal blemishes) represented inside of the stone. This shows how the industry grades and sorts diamonds into where the cost comes from, as well as categorizes the stone to be identified at first glance according to its Grading Certificate.
*The GIA Diamond Clarity Scale has 6 categories, some of which are divided, for a total of 11 specific grades.
- Flawless (FL) No inclusions and no blemishes visible under 10x magnification
- Internally Flawless (IF) No inclusions visible under 10x magnification
- Very, Very Slightly Included (VVS1 and VVS2) Inclusions so slight they are difficult for a skilled grader to see under 10x magnification
- Very Slightly Included (VS1 and VS2) Inclusions are observed with effort under 10x magnification, but can be characterized as minor
- Slightly Included (SI1 and SI2) Inclusions are noticeable under 10x magnification
- Included (I1, I2, and I3) Inclusions are obvious under 10x magnification which may affect transparency and brilliance
*cited from GIA Website link:(https://4cs.gia.edu/en-us/diamond-clarity)
As you can see, there are many different boxes for a diamond to fall into in terms of its visual clarity. If you assumed that a Flawless Diamond (FL) is hard to come by, you’d be correct. It should come as no surprise that these particular grades of stone are the definition of valuable; to say the least. In fact, these stones are so rare that they only account for fewer than 1% of all graded diamonds. Fewer than one-percent of ALL diamonds on Earth are Flawless. Wow.
Color - All diamonds fall onto the GIA Color Scale, this unit of measurement tells us the wide variety of color tinges/hues that could be represented in a stone. Most diamonds actually have a yellowish or brown hue to their color. Paired with inclusions, these characteristics behave as “identifiers” in our industry which helps us determine the difference between a diamond and say, a CZ (Cubic Zirconia - imitation stone) or a Lab Grown stone. This color scale is cleverly graded from D-Z (with ABC being omitted from the beginning so as to not conflict with any previously known 1,2,3, A,B,C grading methods.) The GIA Color Scale has become the official jewelers guide to determining the color of any stone.
Of course, diamonds are not limited to these colors alone. Diamonds can also be color treated to represent a wide array of colors such as, greens, blues, pinks, greens etc. However, these more vibrant colors will not be represented on the color scale as its intended use is to grade the colors of natural stones. Natural stones are typically more brown or yellow in hue.
Carat - Onto our final C. Carat Weight. This is where we get our weight, size, and value of a stone. A metric Carat equals 200 Milligrams or 100 points. Oftentimes a diamond's point value will be short handed to “pointer” for example. If a diamond has a CTW (carat total weight) of .85 the jeweler will simply refer to the stone as an “85 Pointer”. Or a 1.08 CTW stone is referred to as “One point oh-eight Carats”
Well those are the 4 C’s of Diamond Quality as per the Gemological Institute of America. You can of course find tons more information on the 4 C’s on their handy website, linked above. With all of that fun learning out of the way, let’s get into our final topic:
Lab Grown Diamonds
Lab Grown Diamonds are as the name suggests, lab-grown. They are synthesized from a crystal “seed” which contains all the strongest components of the crystal to allow it to grow into a Diamond with intense pressure and heat, similar to the natural Earth-made process just, you know, sped up by billions of years! It only takes about 6-10 weeks to grow a Lab Diamond.
Why purchase a Lab Grown Diamond, you might be wondering? Well, the short answer is savings but the long of it is simply determined by yours or the purchaser's preferences. These preferences can vary, maybe you or the person you’re buying for has an ethical reason as to why they prefer a Lab Grown Diamond. Ultimately, the savings between Natural and Lab Grown is up to about 30% the cost difference. Which is huge! These Man-Made stones are just as bright, beautiful and test for the same hardness as any natural stone. Hard to say no to that!
So why April? The most common answer as to why we all have our own birthstone is the Astrological/Zodiac Calendar. Diamonds symbolize romance and eternity and the name is derived from the Greek word “Adamas” meaning “invincible or unbreakable.
Sound like someone you know?
Thank you for reading this 1st installment of our Monthly Birthstone Blog! We hope you learned something new here today and if you would like to know more about Diamonds or their origins, our friends the GIA have a tremendous amount of information on their website. Of course, we encourage you to stop into the store and pay us a visit! We love talking about diamonds and educating our customers on the subject. Join us next month where we will be talking about Emeralds!
By Kyle Gibbs
(works cited in this article contains information provided by the following links.)
https://www.gia.edu/birthstones/april-birthstones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_(gemstone)