How to Buy a Diamond

Purchasing a diamond can be a daunting task. We've tried to simplify a technical topic.

Decide which properties of Diamond are most important to you. Write down, in order of importance, which of the 5C's you care most about: Cost, Carat, Color, Clarity or Cut. Most people want big. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But we'd like you to be aware of what you may be giving up in exchange for a big stone. When we show people two stones with similar properties, one a bit smaller with a better cut and the other a bit bigger, but not as good a cut, they will usually prefer the better cut. This is due to the better cut allowing more light to reflect through the diamond and in turn give it more life. Find a jeweller who will be willing to show you the difference, it will be worth your time.

Go to jewellery stores and get the market price for the type of diamond you are looking for. Look at the quality of the stones they are quoting you. Make sure when comparing prices that you compare apples to apples. This is actually very hard to do. For example, minor differences in cut and proportions can have a severe impact on a stone's price and beauty. A most important point to remember is not to compare the price of a certified diamond with a price of a diamond which is not certified. You may be in for a surprise.

Ask for a certificate. There are several Independent Laboratories out there. The most well-known is GIA, the Gemological Institute of America. GIA has done a great service by providing the public a metric to compare diamonds and diamond prices from different suppliers, jewellers and dealers. Nonetheless, if you don't know the rules of the game, even this won't help you. Other well known laboratories include EGL, DIA and JCSA.

Look for corresponding colour and clarities. In other words, don't buy a high colour/low clarity or high clarity/low colour diamond. In a similar vein, why pay a premium for an "Ideal" cut diamond, and then accept a lower color and clarity? You pay a serious premium for getting say an "E" colour diamond. What's the purpose of paying that premium and then buying an SI2 diamond? Why not go down a colour or two and increase one or two clarities? This is a very common practice.

Is it safe to buy a diamond on the Internet? Good question. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If you make sure you know who you're dealing with, it can be. Just because you found a good supplier on the Internet, it doesn't mean you can't make an effort to visit them in person. Of course sometimes distances make it impractical. In those cases you have to judge for yourself if it's safe to do business with them. If you do decide to take the risk, make sure that you only buy a certified stone, and make sure they offer a guarantee that if you don't like the stone after viewing it, that you can return it.