I don’t just sell diamonds I live for them. I now only sell the very best diamonds and the quality I sell is not freely available on the high street. My customers are very discerning and they want the best quality stones. When you actually see a good quality diamond you can see the difference to the stones and rings available in the high street. My customers have seen and know this and do not go anywhere else once I have dealt with them. Which I must thank my customers for.

There are a lot of sites on the internet discussing diamonds and the things to look for but most of them do not have the experience I have. I was amused to see a site informing visitors that a princess cut diamond was the most fiery cut. This is totally untrue the princess cut is a mixture of a brilliant cut and a step cut. The round brilliant has the most fire. I have a lot of experience finding stones for clients. Learning first what the client likes dislikes and what quality the client would normally buy and expects. A very important part of this, which is over looked is the type of jewellery the client already has, will the new piece be worn with any other jewellery will they be able to match the jewellery as the years go on.

Everything to do with cut grading diamonds are proportionate with sizes the same as when you are dealing with a customer you have to weigh all the customers requirement up and pick the best stone for the customer. I want the customer to go home happy with there diamond and then wake up the next day after a good night’s rest and be happier with the stone than they were the day before. I look at the cut and there is a lot more to this than you read on other web sites. I think most of them copy the 4 Cs off leaflets. If you would like to know more please look at this section: Diamonds cut.

The Clarity
This is very hard to ascertain as you might think even with the right equipment and experience I use a 10 times microscope and then I use a 40 times microscope to really look at the stones and see there history. You can see growth line and a lot more at this type of magnification. If you would like to know more please look at this section: Diamonds clarity.

Colour
This needs a lot of experience, the right lighting conditions, looking at the stones correctly and a set of master stones to grade perfectly. If you would like to know more please look at this section. Diamonds colour.

Carat weight
You just need a set of scales but a well picked stone has more fire and a larger mm size than a badly picked stone with the same weight. If you would like to know more please look at this section. Diamonds carat weight.

Fluorescence
This can be a very important factor in choosing a stone. 50% of all diamonds have fluorescence. Some types of fluorescence can effect the stone very badly in certain lights. Also the fluorescence tells you how to mount the stone in some cases. I have seen stones that look stunning in white and natural light. Then when you walk into a room where one of the lights is slightly yellow (a dirty fluorescence tubes is the worse) the stone with certain florescence will take on a petrol colour and lose a lot of fire. If you would like to know more please look at this section: Diamonds fluorescence.

How diamonds are formed.
The formation of diamonds is very rare as the molten carbon soup must combine in certain proportions, hundreds of kilometres beneath the earth’s surface and be exposed to very high temperatures and pressures.

One type or grade colour of diamond would be formed at a starting temperature of 1,350 degrees with a pressure of 70.000 atm. This pressure and temperature would only occur at around 135 to 200 kilometres below the earth’s surface. Slight changes to the molten soups chemical composition, the temperature and pressure creates the different grades and colours in diamonds.

Also the molten soup must then start to cool uniformly so the crystals form and grow into diamonds. The diamonds must then be ejected through an eruption very quickly or cooled very quickly in the air or the sea. Diamonds slowly break down into graphite at 1200 degrees Celsius when they are not exposed to air.

The chemical equation is as follows.

2FeS+CO2=2FeO+S2+C (Diamond)

Coloured diamonds are formed in the same way but they are much rarer as other chemicals have to be present to form the different colours. Also the amounts of the different chemicals form the different intensities in the coloured stones. For example Yellow diamonds are formed when Nitrogen is present in the molten soup. These are only trace elements in the molten soup.

When the crystallisation of a diamond is interrupted or suddenly stopped by a change in temperature / pressure diamonds can grow joined together or a new diamond can grow around a diamond crystal already formed. (This is very rare) You get various non-uniformity’s such as inclusions, growth layers and various other irregularities in the stone. I have seen and owned diamonds with brown spindel, magnetite, black ilmenite, small green enstatite or reddish garnet in the diamond. There are collectors who collect these stones.

Diamonds were first discovered around 800 BC. Other gemstones had been mined and worn 1200 years before (Emeralds were mined in Egypt’s upper desert hills later named Cleopatra’s mines) and pearls had been used in jewellery even earlier than this.

The first diamonds mined and cut in India were from the riverbeds and flats around Golconda. The volcanic source of these diamonds has never been found in India. Some of the most famous diamonds in history came out of these mines. Diamonds were said to have magical properties stopping the effects of plague, impotency and host of other properties. The Indians used to point to the poor who always got the plague first because of the squalor they lived in to prove it. Also to the fact their offspring died early or in childbirth. The indians thought this because they did not posses diamonds. The Indian Maharajahs used to loot each other’s treasures to gain the biggest and best diamonds. Diamonds were power and authority and still remain the symbol of wealth privilege and power.