Diamond Color

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Hi, I am Ronnie Mervis with Mervis Diamond Importers and I am back to talk to you about the next C which is color. Color is very important. Let me first tell you what I am not going to talk about when we talk about diamond color. I am not going to talk about the exotic colors. There are many exotic colors, which have become very popular. People talk about pink diamonds, purple diamonds, black diamonds, blue diamonds, red diamonds that isn't what falls into the general conversation about the color. But, we are talking about here in terms of diamond color, there is color on the scale from zero color to very slight yellow. Most diamonds are in the slight yellow range.

The best ones exhibit none of that at all. The ideal what we are looking for mostly is a colorless diamond. A diamond that shows no color at all, when it face up, absolutely like water or like ice. That is what we called a colorless diamond and as we tend to go in to color, the diamond draws more and more yellow. Very slight yellow until at the opposite end of the scale on a white to yellow scale, you get a little bit of yellowness showing in and the stronger it gets more obvious it gets and then we talk about a yellow diamond. If it becomes deeply yellow then it has a value as well, as a fancy intense deep yellow. But for the middle range of diamond, for the most of the diamonds which are sold , most of the engagement ring diamonds, they go from no color to a little bit of body color, but not so much that you can see it, the difference is a microscopic.

Now we have two charts here. We have first Mervis Diamond Chart if the camera closes in you will see color grading scale and it is graded from D through to Z and then into yellow. The best diamonds are the diamonds, which have no color at all and they are given a letter of the alphabet. The GIA which is the Gemological Institute of America is the standard for grading of diamonds in the United States.

They not the only major lab, there are couple of very important ones, but the GIA set up a color grading scale and its start at D. D, E and F show no color at all and that is what we call colorless. Each one has a little bit less color than the next but they are all essentially colorless. At the color F scale turns ever so slightly, but nothing that you see and we will go into the next four colors which were G, H, I AND J. Those are termed near colorless. In a laboratory setting against master stones with a master grader, looking at them in the most perfect of the condition, he or she will see that each one is getting progressively more yellow than the last one that to the average eye nobody will see whether H and I has got any color or not. At J we go into faint yellow. Just return a corner into K, one begins to see a slight a little bit color.

Just the slightest hint. Again even I am saying yellow, that is a hint of yellow and its only if you compare a J color diamond or a K color diamond, against say a D and it is strict comparison what one might begin to see the first hint of color, but on the ring, in the ring and on the finger, you won't see it. So K, L and M is faint yellow and then from N onwards the yellow becomes more and more obvious going all away down to Z where it starts becoming quite apparent and here we get in to the yellow range. The bulk of the diamond engagement rings which we sell and which most other people sell are in this very tight group. We like to tell clients, if you really want to go over the top and get the best, go colorless. If you want a good value and not spend that kind of money, somewhere square in the near colorless range G to J you are doing just fine and if you want to drop it little, go into the faint yellow that's also good. On this pyramid you see it slightly differently, at the top D, cross here E, F, G, H, I, J etcetera and at the bottom you got the yellow ones which might appear easy for you to see on the pyramid down to Z. The point is, on the bottom row we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven stones. Five, over there four, three, two, one. Making the point, the lower in color the more they are, the more plentifully they occur, the less you will pay. At the top it is the exact opposite, they are very rare. So when you pay more for a D and you pay for in this case something below around the T, you are paying more because its more rare and its not named normally better it just occurs more frequently. If a average ratio of tons of rock mined to carats of diamonds produced is about 20 tons of rock to one carat and for that you would get an average stone out. If then say I don't want an average stone, I want one much higher than the average, then how many more tons of rock does one have to mine. The 20 tons might go to 40 tons or 50 tons or even more than that. There is a huge cost of mining, tremendous cost of exploration and that's why one has more for rarity. So rarity is a big part of the two factors, rarity affects the value and of course the color. Again the most desirable being the least color, being a D an E or an F but by the same token they cost more. Its easy to see the differences between the highest and the medium or the lowest if you have them in strict comparison right up against each other as we have here on this diamond, pad, but when there is one only and its on the finger you don't see it that easily. So, there is the word on color and as for the others like I said, the exotics, the red, the purples, forget them you are not get to come across them and if you do they are so rare and they are going to be priced so out of reach that it's a museum item for you to ogle it, but not to acquire.

Thank you very much, this is me, Ronnie Mervis, from Mervis Diamond Importers, ending off on the color discussion, but inviting you to stay with us, don't go away, because in the next clip we are going to talk about the fourth C which is carat weights and that relates to diamond size. See you later, thank you very much.

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