Diamonds are not all equal. (Still!)

May 17th 2011

Late last year I finished the ring pictured to the right. This customer had received as a present from her husband some money to have a new piece of jewellery made. I would like to briefly run through the process that preceded the making of this ring. 

After the design process I went through the varying details of diamond grades and it became very clear that the size and quality of diamonds she thought were acceptable did not fall within her budget. 

It is all too easy to cut corners by selling inferior diamonds to customers that have very little knowledge about what determines the value of a diamond. To some people a diamond is a diamond. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is not an accident that most jewellery chains do not advertise the details of the diamonds that can heavily determine the true value of their jewellery. When was the last time you saw colour, clarity and cut of diamonds mentioned in a jewellery chain advertisement?

I have nothing against customers deciding to accept lower quality diamonds, meeting a budget or not really caring about the quality is all fine by me, just so long as the customer knows what they are buying.

Even after the most basic discussion on diamond clarity, colour and cut, this customer had decided what she would and would not accept. With this knowledge she was now able to now make an informed decision on from whom she would purchase her new diamond ring and if it was worthwhile to take lesser quality diamonds to meet her budget. 

In the end we did exceed her initial budget but she had made an informed purchase, a decision that was not based on price alone but on the true quality and value of her new ring.

For those of you that would like to read more about how little jewellery chains like to tell you about the diamonds in their jewellery this post from 2009 titled "Diamonds are not all equal" will be of interest.

With diamond prices increasing I would expect to see even lower quality diamonds being used in the main stream jewellery chains to enable them to maintain their profit margins.