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The term "gem diamonds," however, covers a broad spectrum w, based on the four Cs of clarity, color, cut, and carat Although the terminology can vary from store to store and from country to country, more and more jewelers in the United states using the standards and terminology established by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).
These and other standards terminology you may hear or see are given in Appendix II. Grated you may find still other terms, but any reliable jeweler –should be able to translate his terminology into GIA terms, particularly if he has taken GIA courses. The GIA standards and quality certificates, incidentally, are accepted and may be used worldwide, especially for investment diamonds.
Investment diamonds are at the very top of the standards used to judge gem diamonds. At the lower end are jewelry diamonds, the diamonds you are most likely to find in jewelry. In between are diamonds that are too good for ordinary jewelry. They are used in the best jewelry but are not good enough for investment purposes.
Although buying diamonds for investment purposes is entirely different from buying diamond jewelry and diamonds for jewelry, whose purpose is adornment, you should be aware of-and beware-talk of investing in diamonds for the sake of diamonds. Diamonds have long been bought by investors in Europe, some South American countries, and Asia, and they are beginning to be thought, of as being investments in the United States because of their dramatic increase in value over the past few years.
What you want to beware, as mentioned before, is the fact that the diamonds that have increased in value so much are the top quality stones and not all diamonds, David Rosental, president of Kohinoor International, Ltd., of New York, a diamond brokerage house, points out that an investment diamond must be flawless nearly flawless, be of top color (D through H on the table), and at least 1 carat in size. Cut and color are more important to a diamond attractiveness in jewelry than minor inclusions that can be hidden by a setting, but even the tiniest inclusions can lower a diamond's value as an investment.
You also want to be aware that diamonds meeting the investment criteria are rarely found in jewelry. For one thing, they are usually bought before they can reach the jeweler. For another, the cost at retail, often 100 percent above wholesale price, would have only make such a diamond prohibitive in price to the average , consumer but also mean that the diamond would have to be he considerably longer time. In addition, prices would have to rise much more dramatically for the average consumer to break even on his investment.
