The Graduate Gemologist

“L as set”

I am one of the diamond buyers over at diamonds2cash.com, a customer who is considering selling a diamond has an appraisal that states:

Cut: Round Brilliant
Estimated weight by formula: 1.10 carats
Clarity: VS-2
Color: “L” as set
Symmetry: Good
Polish: Good

The seller was curious about what “L” as set means.

When grading the color of a diamond, ideally they are placed table down next to a master stone and the color is compared to the diamond of known color. A grader will have a set of master stones in a number of colors and check the stone being graded to the masters until they find the closest match.

That is the ideal situation… often appraisals must be done when the diamond is set in a ring or another piece of jewelry. The color and setting style can have a major impact on the appearance of color.

When set in jewelry the diamond may appear to have less color than it actually does, placing a yellow “M” color diamond into a platinum setting may give it the appearance of it being K or L in color (or even higher!).

Only if the diamond was removed from the setting could the actual color be determined. It is a bit of guess work when grading color of a set diamond so an appraisal will indicate that the diamond was graded set as a warning that the information may not be 100% accurate.

Major diamond grading labs such as the GIA will not grade diamonds unless they are loose, simply because they can not be 100% certain about the diamonds 4C’s when mounted.

Gemologists Wanted

I personally know a few other G.G.’s which I have met while working in the industry, as well as a few I know from attending the GIA. Some of them hold very interesting positions and I hope to entice them to do some guest posts for the site.

So far I’ve got a few G.G.’s that will be submitting guest articles, but if you are a gemologist and would like to write a guest article please get in touch with me.

An Introduction To Diamond Cut

Diamond cut is one of the 4C’s: Cut, Clarity, Color, Carat Weight.

When most people think of diamond cut, they think of shape like round, princess, marquise etc.
At first glance that seems to make sense, but it is not correct.

Diamond cut actually refers to how the facets and angles are put on a diamond. The cut is considered by many as the most important of the 4C’s and has a major impact on the brilliance, fire and overall appearance of the diamond.

Of course what looks best is subjective and there has never (until recently) been a standard
that has been accepted within the industry.

In 1919 a mathematician by the name of Marcel Tolkowsky came up with his idea of what
proportions a diamond should have in order to produce a beautiful diamond. The idea
of cut is to get as much light to enter the diamond, bounce around inside and be returned
back out the top to the viewers eyes. The more light that you can return to the viewer (without leaking out the sides) the more impressive the diamond.

Diamonds being cut within Tolkowky’s ideal range may look nice, but for some reason the industry did not widely accept the range as a standard.

The GIA which is recognized as one of the leaders in diamond grading, research and education
embarked on the massive task of coming up with a cut grade system. Obviously their desire
would be to get their system accepted by the industry.

They spent more than 10 years researching diamond cut, finally updating their reports with the addition of a cut grade (for round diamonds only) in 2006. They do not use the term ideal cut, rather they released a fairly simple scale which goes from Excellent to Poor.

Excellent
Very Good
Good
Fair
Poor

Their cut grade was immediately accepted by the industry, they license the technology to

other diamond labs and hardware manufactures such as Sarin and OGI Systems.

Prior to the GIA’s standard diamond cutters would essentially cut a diamond as they
wished, often to retain as much weight of the rough diamond as they could rather than
cut the diamond to make it perform as well as it could. Diamonds are sold by weight
so it was to their advantage to keep as much of the weight as possible.

The GIA cut grade system makes it easy to pick a diamond based on the cut grade which is clearly stated on the diamond report. The difference in appearance between a diamond that has the grade excellent vs. good can be quite amazing.

As a general rule of thumb, if you are buying a round diamond you want to purchase the
highest cut grade you can afford. The price difference between a poor cut and excellent
cut diamond is massive and so is the visual appearance.

The good news is there are very few diamonds entering the market that are have cut grades below Very Good. Diamond buyers made their choices known, they want a quality cut diamond and diamond cutters now cut largely based on the GIA cut grade scale.

The Graduate Gemologist

GIA's Robert Mouawad campus — GIA Campus @ Carlsbad, CA

Welcome to The Graduate Gemologist, a website for people who are interested in gems, diamonds and gemology.

I am Robert Gunther, the founder of this site. I have always been interested in diamonds for as long as I can remember. My first memory of diamonds as a kid was my great aunt who had cluster ring which I remember as being full of diamonds – that was it, I was hooked.

I bought my first diamond shortly after I graduated from college and started working, it was 0.75ct in size and I believe it was SI2 in clarity… no memory of the color.

While working in the United Kingdom someone suggested I take a diamond class, since I was seemingly so interested in them.

After researching online and I found the Graduate Gemologist Program at the GIA. The program consists of classes on diamonds & colored stones, when all of which are completed you obtain the GIA Graduate Gemologist (GG) diploma.

I signed up and breezed through the diamond modules as that is where my interest was. Once you have completed the diamond program you get the GIA Graduate Diamonds diploma. The final half of the program deals with pearls and colored stones of all types. While interesting, these were more difficult for me as my love was really with the diamond.

I did complete the program at the GIA campus in Carlsbad, in about 2006 (I think).

As a gemologist who continues my education in the field I continue to build knowledge about various topics. This site is where I will dump some of the knowledge that I come across that I find interesting.