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Overview
Are you afraid you'll make a mistake?
Do you know what an ideal cut diamond is?
Consumer Guide To Diamonds - How to spend your fortune without making a mistake.
There are plenty of bad diamonds out there and somebody has to buy them. Written by a working jeweler, gemologist and appraiser who's seen every mistake you'll make, Consumer Guide To Diamonds will make sure that somebody isn't you.
Every diamond education covers the four C's - Carat Weight, Color, Clarity, Cut. The first three are straightforward and easily grasped. How big is it? How white is it? How many flaws? But the cut makes the diamond shine and shine is the whole point of buying diamond. Cut refers not to the shape or number of facets of a diamond, but to the angles and relative sizes of the facets. There's less than 1 degree tolerance for good brilliance on the angle that forms the bottom cone of a diamond.
Cut is very messy. Angles, percentages, ideal cuts, near-ideals, spread stones, nailheads, fisheyes, girdle, crown, pavilion.... Well, so what? Just buy one with a good cut grade. Well, one outfit has one that really isn't one but everybody uses it anyway. But the GIA (Gemological Institute of America), the 800 pound gorilla of diamonds, doesn't like it so they just got their own, which really is one, but it's only for round diamonds. I told you cut was messy. The book explains these convolutions, from the optics to the politics.
There's a lot about cut in the book because cut is The Next Big Thing in the diamond world and the industry is in the middle of a cat and dog fight about whose idea of the "ideal cut diamond" will win. The diamonds in the skyand water on the cover are actual top and bottom photos of a "hearts and arrows" diamond, a perfectly symmetrical, "superideal" cut, taken through a special viewer. The book explains all the ins and outs of ideal cuts and hearts and arrows diamonds.
There are a lot of photos in the book. A series of photos shows you how easy it is to spot diamonds for which that bottom angle you just got so worried about is wrong. And those flaws you're still worried about are shown in another series of photos. There are photos of fake and doctored diamonds, too. One of the reasons the book is relatively short is all those thousand-word pictures. The other is that you want a book to get unconfused first and learn the history of diamonds later. Well, you need a little history for the big picture and the book will give you just the right amount.
The book also covers certificates, price lists, fake and doctored diamonds, advertising hype, shopping tips, and appraisals.
And you'll get a dose of that old-time retail religion. You get what you pay for. "Discount" means cheap stuff cheap, not good stuff cheap. A good deal on a bad diamond is no bargain. And there's juicy gossip about the non-believers who went to diamond hell.
But it's not all work. There's some fun stuff, too. A company called LifeGem will turn your ashes into a diamond after you're gone. The company will heat your specially prepared "cremains" in a vacuum to reduce you to pure carbon, and then will squeeze you into a diamond. Cost is $22,000 per carat with a 1/4 carat minimum at $4000. A human is forever. And there's no need to spend forever without your best friend. Rover can join you when his time comes. The company reports that half its business is for pets.
I write newsletters, too. For something completely different, check out "Ornamentally Incorrect, Have You Hugged Your Jeweler Today?", also sold on bn.com.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780970007414 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Mirsky, Joseph Jewelry Inc. |
| Publication date: | 06/28/2003 |
| Pages: | 108 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.70(w) x 8.46(h) x 0.25(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
"When light enters a diamond it is bent inwards by the diamond, then bounces around inside until it comes out, where it is bent outwards. The idea behind designing a diamond is to control this bending and bouncing so that light comes out the top of the diamond and at an angle that is directed toward the eye.
About the author:
I am a jeweler, gemologist, and appraiser. In addition, I do all my own bench work: repairs, diamond and stone setting, and custom work. I own a jewelry store in Pompton Lakes, NJ, where I have been for 13 years. I have been in the jewelry business for 22 years.
Joseph Mirsky