Any woman with money of her own can buy herself a diamond these days. Of course. But to receive a diamond as a gift from the man she loves is surely an unforgettable experience for any woman. And it is not about the gemstone’s monetary value at all, but its emotional one. For diamonds carry powerful symbolism: it is the hardest, most enduring gemstone in the world, millions of years old, extremely rare — and therefore so precious. For all these reasons it has established itself as a symbol of love, above all when there is something to celebrate. Diamonds appear as a solitaire in the classic engagement ring, in the wedding band, or in a carefully chosen piece of jewellery marking the birth of a child or a couple’s special anniversary.
C for Cut, Clarity, Colour, Carat
The price range for diamonds is enormous, which is precisely why the giver is well advised to do his homework first. “If you give your beloved completely free rein at the jeweller’s, things could turn embarrassing or sobering should she fall for a piece beyond your financial means,” says Tobias Lanz, head diamond buyer at Bucherer Fine Jewellery. He advises men wishing to give a diamond to make a preliminary selection at a specialist shop, to be presented to their partner on a later joint visit. She can still make a different choice, but certain parameters are already in place.
Once the budget is set, the so-called four Cs are what matter in choosing the right piece, for they determine the stone’s value: “Cut”, “Clarity”, “Colour” and “Carat”. The cut — meaning the quality of the cutting — is what the expert calls the most important criterion. The shape, whether a stone is cut as an oval, a pear or a heart, say, is first and foremost a matter of personal taste, but it can also be reflected in the price. A round-cut diamond entails the greatest loss of material and is thus the most expensive cut, since you pay for the parts that are ground away. An excellently cut stone can be recognised even with the naked eye, because its correct proportions give it greater brilliance than a lesser piece.
“Clarity” stands for the purity grading, determined under tenfold magnification. “Flawless” is the highest designation and means the diamond shows no inclusions whatsoever — something exceedingly rare. But somewhat lower gradings are still very precious. A diamond’s colour — the “Colour” — is graded with letters from D to Z, with D denoting the highest quality, meaning colourless. The more colourless the stone, the rarer and more coveted it is. Even laypeople can spot the difference between a D and a G colour with the naked eye. From grade K onwards the stone shows a clearly visible yellowish tinge — not to be confused, however, with a so-called fancy diamond, a coloured diamond. Here the expert, who knows how to tell them apart, can help. Coloured diamonds come not only in shades of yellow but also in pink, blue, green, violet and, very rarely, even red. They are exceptionally rare: only one in 100'000 diamonds earns the designation. And that comes at a price. “Carat”, finally, denotes the gemstone’s weight and is given to two decimal places: 1.00 carat corresponds to 0.2 grams. Diamonds are lightweights with a mighty effect!
Refined understatement
These four quality criteria are the levers to adjust once the budget is set. Preferences vary not only from person to person but also from country to country, as Tobias Lanz knows: “In the USA, for example, the size of the stone matters more than its purity. More show for less money is the motto. In Switzerland, by contrast, understatement is the order of the day. The diamond may be smaller, but it should be of better quality in return.”
Some differences in quality the layman cannot detect with the naked eye. He has to trust the experts. It is therefore advisable to buy diamonds from a reputable address rather than, say, on the internet, where alongside credible firms plenty of fraudsters are also vying for customers. “All the stones no serious jeweller would touch are roaming the internet in search of an unsuspecting buyer,” Tobias Lanz cautions.
The supply of diamonds is finite. They are not a renewable resource, for the geothermal conditions that favour their formation have changed. Today there are around 60 untapped deposits worldwide — partly, too, because the effort is not worth it. Some existing mines are being shut down for the same reason. These factors ensure that diamonds remain exclusive and do not lose their value. Good to know — even if most men who buy a diamond do not necessarily regard it as a financial investment, but rather as an investment in love. Which is, after all, the lovelier thought.
Questions of provenance
Less lovely are the working conditions under which certain gemstones are mined, and their origins. So-called blood diamonds come from countries such as Congo or Sierra Leone, where civil wars were financed through the diamond trade. To prevent this, the Kimberley Process was introduced — a regulatory scheme for controlling the trade in rough diamonds. Customers do well to ask the jeweller before buying whether his diamonds comply with the Kimberley Process, which is standard practice at long-established houses such as Bucherer Fine Jewellery.
For some years now, synthetic diamonds have been touted as the more socially and environmentally responsible option. But appearances deceive! With a synthetic diamond, what you are chiefly paying for is the electricity consumed in its manufacture. And a great deal of energy is needed to artificially recreate the pressure and, above all, the heat a stone has undergone deep within the earth. Renewable energy is rarely involved, and the mere fact that hardly any people take part in the manufacturing does not make synthetic stones more socially responsible per se. “In countries such as Botswana, two thirds of the population live from diamond mining. Buying synthetic stones deprives them of their livelihood,” Tobias Lanz explains.
Laypeople will be unable to tell a synthetic diamond from a real one — and perhaps some experts won’t either. But diamonds are not only about what you see; they are also about what you know and, above all, what you feel when you hold one of these sparkling masterpieces of nature in your hands. A singular miracle — like the love that inspires most buyers.
This article appeared in MEN issue 1/22 (May 2022).
