Free Jewelry Giveaways

I found this video about journey diamonds at the “Diamond is Forever” website. It is called “dandelions” & features an annoying love song & a dandelion blowing around. I don’t see what that has to do with jewelry. It really makes me more interested in lawn care then buying diamonds. I still just don’t get the journey diamond thing.

I kept seeing advertisements for journey jewelry. It seemed like a lot of jewelry stores are pushing this line of jewelry during the Holidays. Only question I have is, what the crap is journey jewelry? I went to several sites & all I found is the motto “with every step love grows”. This seems a lot like the right hand ring campaign of a few years back, but at least that made sense.  I need an explanation as to why I should buy successively smaller diamonds.  They’d appeal to me more if they just shouted, buy diamonds, at least that I understand. “With every step love grows?” Is that enough to buy jewelry on? Well the jewelry is pretty, the commercials are beautiful, the motto is nice & maybe that is enough. If you have any idea what journey jewelry is about please leave a comment.

The last “C” of Diamond’s is cut.  The article belongs to Wikipedia, and my observations are in pink.

 ”Diamond cutting is the art and science of creating a gem-quality diamond out of mined rough. The cut of a diamond describes the manner in which a diamond has been shaped and polished from its beginning form as a rough stone to its final gem proportions. The cut of a diamond describes the quality of workmanship and the angles to which a diamond is cut. Often diamond cut is confused with “shape.”

You can think of diamond cut as shape, I won’t tell anyone.

 ”There are mathematical guidelines for the angles and length ratios at which the diamond is supposed to cut at in order to reflect the maximum amount of light.”

I don’t like math.

“Round brilliant diamonds, the most common, are guided by these specific guidelines, though fancy cut stones are not able to be as accurately guided by mathematical specifics. The techniques for cutting diamonds have been developed over hundreds of years, with perhaps the greatest achievements made in 1919 by mathematician and gem enthusiast Marcel Tolkowsky. He developed the round brilliant cut by calculating the ideal shape to return and scatter light when a diamond is viewed from above. The modern round brilliant has 57 facets (polished faces), counting 33 on the crown (the top half), and 24 on the pavilion (the lower half). The girdle is the thin middle part. The function of the crown is to diffuse light into various colors and the pavilion’s function to reflect light back through the top of the diamond. Tolkowsky defines the ideal dimensions to have: Table percentage (table diameter divided by overall diameter) = 53% Depth percentage (Overall depth divided by the overall diameter) = 59.3% Pavilion Angle (Angle between the girdle and the pavilion) = 40.75° Crown Angle (Angle between the girdle and the crown) = 34.5° Pavilion Depth (Depth of pavilion divided by overall diameter) = 43.1% Crown Depth (Depth of crown divided by crown diameter) = 16.2%.”

Math is still hard, I’ll just trust Tolkowsky on that one.

“The culet is the tiny point or facet at the bottom of the diamond. This should be a negligible diameter, otherwise light leaks out of the bottom. Tolkowsky’s ideal dimensions did not include a girdle. However, a thin girdle is required in reality in order to prevent the diamond from easily chipping in the setting. A normal girdle should be about 1%–2% of the overall diameter. The further the diamond’s characteristics are from Tolkowsky’s ideal, the less light will be reflected. However, there is a small range in which the diamond can be considered “ideal.” Today, because of the relative importance of carat weight in society, many diamonds are often intentionally cut poorly to increase carat weight. There is a financial premium for a diamond that weighs the magical 1.0 carat, so often the girdle is made thicker or the depth is increased. Neither of these tactics make the diamond appear any bigger, and they greatly reduce the sparkle of the diamond. So a poorly cut 1.0 carat diamond may have the same diameter and appear as large as a 0.85 carat diamond.”

How rude!

 ”The depth percentage is the overall quickest indication of the quality of the cut of a round brilliant. “Ideal” round brilliant diamonds should not have a depth percentage greater than 62.5%. Another quick indication is the overall diameter. Typically a round brilliant 1.0 carat diamond should have a diameter of about 6.5 mm. Mathematically, the diameter in millimeters of a round brilliant should approximately equal 6.5 times the cube root of carat weight, or 11.1 times the cube root of gram weight.  Diamonds do not show all of their beauty as rough stones; instead, they must be cut and polished to exhibit the characteristic fire and brilliance that diamond gemstones are known for.”

Rough = not sparkly.  That is as much math as I’m willing to do.

 ”Diamonds are cut into a variety of shapes that are generally designedd to accentuate these features. Diamonds which are not cut to the specifications of Tolkowsky’s round brilliant shape (or subsequent variations) are known as “fancy cuts.” Popular fancy cuts include the baguette (from the French, meaning rod or loaf of bread), marquise, princess (square outline), heart, briolette (a form of the rose cut), and pear cuts. Generally speaking, these “fancy cuts” are not held to the same strict standards as Tolkowsky-derived round brilliants and there are less specific mathematical guidelines of angles which determine a well-cut stone. Cuts are influenced heavily by fashion: the baguette cut—which accentuates a diamond’s luster and downplays its fire—was all the rage during the Art Deco period, whereas the princess cut—which accentuates a diamond’s fire rather than its luster—is currently gaining popularity. The princess cut is also popular amongst diamond cutters: of all the cuts, it wastes the least of the original crystal.”

The princess cut is our friend and it has a nice name.

“The past decades have seen the development of new diamond cuts, often based on a modification of an existing cut. Some of these include extra facets. These newly developed cuts are viewed by many as more of an attempt at brand differentiation by diamond sellers, than actual improvements to the state of the art.  The quality of a diamond’s cut is widely considered the most important of the four Cs in determining the beauty of a diamond; indeed, it is commonly acknowledged that a well-cut diamond can appear to be of greater carat weight, and have clarity and color appear to be of better grade than they actually are.”

Diamond cuts are very important.

“The skill with which a diamond is cut determines its ability to reflect and refract light. In addition to carrying the most importance to a diamond’s quality as a gemstone, the cut is also the most difficult to quantitatively judge. A number of factors, including proportion, symmetry, and the relative angles of various facets, are determined by the quality of the cut and can affect the performance of a diamond. A poorly cut diamond with facets cut only a few degrees out of alignment can result in a poorly performing stone. For a round brilliant cut, there is a balance between “brilliance” and “fire.” When a diamond is cut for too much “fire,” it looks like a cubic zirconia, which gives off much more “fire” than real diamond. A well-executed round brilliant cut should reflect light upwards and make the diamond appear white when viewed from the top. An inferior cut will produce a stone that appears dark at the center and in some extreme cases the ring settings may show through the top of the diamond as shadows.”

Seeing the ring setting through the diamond = bad.  Ok, so I had a little more math left in me, but that’s it!

“Several different theories on the “ideal” proportions of a diamond have been and continue to be advocated by professional gemologists. Recently, there has been a shift away from grading cut by the use of various angles and proportions toward measuring the performance of a cut stone. A number of specially modified viewers and machines have been developed toward this end. They included the FireScope, a.k.a. SymmetriScope or IdealScope (tests for light leakage, light return and proportions), Hearts and Arrows Viewer (test for “hearts and arrows” characteristic pattern observable on stones exhibiting high symmetry), GemEx BrillianceScope (tests for direct light performance results of a diamond), Isee2 Beauty Evaluator (tests for diffused light performance results for round or octagonal diamonds), and ASET (test for AGS cut grade).”

All cool sounding things, none of which I own.

“These viewers and machines often help consumers determine the light performance results of the diamond in addition to the traditional 4 C’s. Along with this shift there are a few companies that provide results on these viewers and machines in addition to the original 4c’s. The GIA has also developed criteria for grading the cut of round brilliant stones .”