The more you know about diamonds, the better equipped you are to serve your customers. There are so many fascinating facts to know, from the geological history of diamonds, to those famous 4Cs (cut, carat weight, clarity, color), to what’s involved in creating stones in a laboratory.
Why not use your diamond knowledge as edu-tainment to draw in clients? You can help drive sales, stimulate deeper conversation, aid customers in their purchasing decisions, or just share some fun facts.
As you hit the holiday season, we hope you’ll find this collection of diamond facts useful. We’ve also included show-and-tell tips to enhance fun facts you might share with a visual aid or hands-on demonstration.
Natural Diamonds
One world, one origin: Diamonds formed between 1 billion and 3 billion years ago, during the eras leading up to when the supercontinent Pangaea began to break apart, 175 million years ago. Tectonic shifts eventually separated Pangaea into the seven continents we know today, where diamond mines and sources are now located.
Diamond time: Humans have existed for only 200,000 years, whereas the average diamond is 2 billion years old. That’s 10,000 times longer! For perspective, putting it in the context of a 50-year-old person’s life: All of human history has taken place in their last four days, the Great Pyramids were built only two hours ago, and the Bible was written 60 minutes ago.
The 4Cs
Cut quality and size appearance: You cannot assess a diamond’s size by carat weight alone (we already know this) or by its physical dimensions in millimeters. Why? When taken out of bright lighting, some diamonds will darken at the edges, making them appear smaller than well-cut diamonds of the same size that stay bright from edge to edge.
SHOW-AND-TELL: Invest in a poorly cut diamond and use it to demonstrate this phenomenon by putting it near your well-cut diamonds in low lighting.
“Flawless” doesn’t actually exist: Clarity is graded at 10x magnification. Zooming in beyond 10x can reveal extremely minute characteristics (or birthmarks), even in flawless diamonds. Remember, Mother Nature makes every single diamond unique.
SHOW-AND-TELL: Keep a stone with super-interesting inclusions handy to show under magnification.
True color: When you look at a mounted diamond, you aren’t seeing the color as it was graded in the lab. Gemologists grade D to Z color by examining the diamond upside down and viewing it from the side to get a neutral perspective. But people look at a diamond from the top when it’s mounted in a setting. Poor cut quality can make a diamond’s color appear more pronounced when viewed from the top, while well-cut diamonds could display less visible color seen from that angle.
SHOW-AND-TELL: Have a white color grading card ready for presenting different diamonds from the side as well as face-up.
Fancy color: Unlike diamonds in the D–Z range, fancy colored diamonds are graded by looking down on the top. This means cutters use a different strategy for such diamonds, employing shapes and geometries that keep light reflecting around inside the stone as long as possible to exaggerate that body color.
Lab-Grown Diamonds
Magnetic diamonds: In the diamond-growing method known as HPHT (high pressure, high temperature), a metallic catalyst is utilized to dissolve carbon, which then migrates to the diamond seed. If a significant number of metal fragments are left in the finished diamond, the stone may be attracted to a magnet.
SHOW-AND-TELL: Share a video clip of a magnetized diamond on your cellphone or tablet—find one by searching “magnetic hpht diamond” on YouTube.
Defying nature: Diamonds made by the method called chemical vapor deposition (CVD) are created under so-called negative pressure. Typically, this would result in graphite, but scientists employ hydrogen to etch away the graphite, allowing them to grow the diamond atom by atom.