HOW TO BUY A DIAMOND PART II

Let’s look at some of the important questions that we didn’t answer in Part I.

How much should you pay for a diamond?

That is strictly your business and it should fit your lifestyle and your pocketbook. Debeers would like you to spend as much as possible, like 3 months or six months of your salary! That is ridiculous. You should pay only what you can afford comfortably because if you need money don’t rely on getting it back from your diamond. Gold is a different story but that is for another hub ( see ‘Selling Your Old Gold’ another of my HUB pages). Diamonds are an investment only for diamond dealers and retailers not you. So get the best price you can negotiate and make sure you don’t need the money for survival.

How can I judge the quality?

You are not a diamond dealer or professional jewelry appraiser so leave the quality determinations to the experts. GIA is the recognized leader in the world for certificating diamonds. But there are equally good certificates from AGL and EGL and a number of others but always ask for the certificate from GIA. Diamonds are bought and sold daily strictly on the paper certificates that represent their qualities with the buyers and sellers not even seeing the stones. So get a certificate for anything over a half carat or $2000. And always compare quality with the same quality when buying. But before you do all this go to www.gia.org and take the short diamond course on line, you’ll be glad you did.

Isn’t Moissanite a cheaper diamond?

No and neither is Diamonele or Diamonaire or Diamonique or  any of the other diamond simulants. They are not diamond!  They are usually manmade minerals that have a lot of characteristics of real diamond and even look like them. Moissanite is the best of the simulants and when set in jewelry it is very difficult even for a gemologist to tell that it is not a diamond. It is much less than diamond but like I said it is not a diamond. Diamond is the hardest natural substance known. It is pure carbon (C) and can be reproduced in a lab. Natural diamond has been millions of years in the making in the belly of a volcano before being mined and shaped for your pleasure.

The other alternative is a synthetic diamond.  Not a stimulant but a real honest to goodness diamond, only made by man not nature. A little cheaper and a really good way to save a little on the purchase price. This is a diamond in all chemical, physical and optical properties.

There are many stones like Cubic Zirconia, synthetic spinel, white sapphire, zircon Strontium Titanate and more that come out every day to compete with natural diamond but nothing can really compare to those million year old stones out of the ground.

So you want to walk away from this adventure with:

A diamond certificate,

An Appraisal,

A Receipt and

A guarantee,

And of course a beautiful diamond ring or other piece of diamond jewelry.