Worths Diamonds

THROWING SOME LIGHT ON CLARITY

Clarity in a diamond begins with the magic of the stone's creation.

It started deep in the earth's core more than a hundred million years ago. Then as volcanic eruptions carry the stones towards the surface, a crystallization process occurs. This usually leaves tiny imperfections within the diamonds. Whether they are spots, bubbles, lines, featherings or any other kind of blemishes, these irregularities are called inclusions.

The grading of the diamond depends on the quantity, size, position, nature, colour and relief of its inclusions. They're what make each diamond unique. Generally speaking though, the fewer the inclusions the more valuable the stone. But if these inclusions are too tiny for the naked eye to pick, why are they so important? The answer is that a diamond's ability to refract light is what gives it the ability to sparkle.

When a beam of light touches the surface of a diamond, part of the ray is reflected back to the viewer. As the rest of the ray penetrates the stone, it is refracted or bent, by the stone's density, reflected from the internal surfaces of the stone and back out the top. At this point, the beam is again refracted, breaking into the rainbow colours of the spectrum. This is called dispersion and it is what makes a diamond's fire and sparkle visible. So the greater a stone's clarity, the greater its brilliance. Therefore, the most valuable white diamonds are those that are very clear and virtually colourless. And with fewer inclusions, to interfere with the passage of light. Clarity is graded on a scale ranging from "Flawless" to "Imperfect". To achieve a "Flawless" (FI) the diamond must have no internal or external inclusions.

The next grade, IF means Internally Flawless: it could have minor surface blemishes but it is internally clear. The grading VVS (1 or 2) means Very Very Slight Inclusions, difficult to see without magnification. VS (1 and 2) means Very Slight Inclusions. S1 (1,2 and 3) means Slight Inclusions. The chart on this page shows you the entire gradings system.

To study and record these inclusions, ten times magnification is employed.

This is the industry’s standard measure. Thus a 10x loupe is the instrument used internationally to establish the gradings.

Remember that it may be very difficult to see the difference in diamonds even if they're a whole clarity grade apart, but their value does decrease with every downgrade on the clarity scale: the difference between a VSI stone and an SI could be as much as 20%.