About Diamonds

How are Diamonds formed?

Diamond is carbon in its most concentrated form and is made up by pure carbon atoms. These carbon atoms are imbedded deep in the ground in the Earth’s mantle, below the Earth’s crust. When introduced to extreme heat and immense pressure, diamonds are formed. Diamonds come to the Earth's surface in molten rock, or magma, that begins deep in the earth’s layers. Pushing diamonds and other pieces of the Earth's mantle, is this magma. With all the pressure and heat, the earth’s inner matter erupts with small, but strong explosive volcanoes. When these volcanoes irrupt, the earth is left with a carrot-shaped "pipe" that contains volcanic rock, mantle fragments, and embedded diamonds. The rock is called kimberlite named for the city of Kimberley in South Africa. Kimberley was the first place these pipes were discovered in the 1870s. A second example of rock that carries diamonds is lamproite. You could say that these pipes and their matter are elevators for diamonds. These massive elevators allow what scientist call "deposits", to surface. Geologist, refer to these as "primary" and "secondary" sources. Primary sources are kimberlite and lamproite that have risen from the Earth’s mantle. Secondary sources are created by erosion, which leads to scattering around the pipe, which can be washed away into rivers or channels. Due to the movement by these rivers and channels, large secondary deposits can be found in the ocean or on our ocean’s beaches, like that along the South African coast.

What Is the History Behind Diamonds?

In modern times the diamond represents prosperity, stability, class, and superior quality. Throughout history, many cultures believed diamonds were majestic. Diamonds were associated with power, strength, enchantment, defense, and resilience. This is a true testament of the diamond’s prosperity through time.

As we all know, diamonds have been used in jewelry for many, many years. Diamonds can be dated back to 1^st century BCE. In the 2^nd century a Roman poet made note that wedding rings are known because of interior inscriptions recording the marriage contracts signed in the presence of the Emperor's image. This custom continued and the diamond became a religious item by the 4th century, when a diamond ring was given as a token of love and marriage. This has been a long lasting tradition over the millennia.

Diamonds can be dated back as far as the 4^th century in India. A minister in India referred to a diamond as "(a diamond that is) big, heavy, capable of bearing blows, with symmetrical points, capable of scratching (from the inside) a (glass) vessel (filled with water), revolving like a spindle and brilliantly shining is excellent. That (diamond) with points lost, without edges and defective on one side is bad." The people of India considered a diamond to be a valuable resource. Without question, India is the first known place diamonds were mined, which made for great power in ancient times.

Diamonds In Industry

Eighty percent of the diamonds mined yearly are used in industry. Four times that amount are diamonds that are grown synthetically for industry. This equals a total of over 500 million carats or 100 metric tons. Diamond is a useful industrial material that affects everyone’s lives. Because diamond is the hardest substance, it is used to cut, grind, and polish most hard substances. It shapes stone, ceramics, metals, and concrete, as well as eyeglasses, gems, and computer chips. Its wide variety of uses include the creation of blades used during critical surgeries.

Stories & Tales of Diamonds

In early Buddhist times, only powerful figures were allowed to own diamonds of an exact color. A priest or ruler could own a white or colorless diamond, a landowner or a warrior could have brown, the middle class merchant - yellow and the lower class merchant - gray to black. Only kings could possess all colors of diamonds.

In the Middle Ages, diamonds were believed to portray their owners as courageous and fearless. Nobleman like Cosimo the Elder, Henry II of France, and possibly the Dukes of Burgundy, used diamond rings as symbols of their status. They even wore them into combat.

It was believed that a diamond could heal a sick person if they took it to bed and warmed it with their body, by breathing on it or wearing it on the skin. A diamond placed in the mouth would beat the bad habits of liars and scolds. Diamonds were even worn as a lucky charm against poisoning. However, diamond powder taken internally was a legendary poison. Turkish Sultan Bajazet, possibly murdered by his son, was given a large quantity of powdered diamond in his food. In l532, the doctors of Pope Clement VII prescribed 14 spoonfuls of ground gems, including diamond, which caused death for the patient, along with a very high bill for his treatment.

The 4 C's

Carat Weight
As with all precious stones, the weight -- and therefore the size -- of a diamond is expressed in carats. One carat is divided into 100 "points" so that a diamond of 25 points is described as a quarter of a carat, or 0.25 carats. Size is the most obvious factor in determining the value of a diamond, but now you know that two diamonds of equal size can have very unequal prices, depending on their quality. However, remember that diamonds of high quality can be found in all size ranges.

Clarity
Because of their unique properties, diamonds, more than any other gemstone are capable of producing the maximum amount of brilliance. While minute crystals of diamond or other minerals are contained in almost all diamonds, a diamond that is virtually free of inclusions and surface markings will be judged as flawless. In these diamonds, nothing interferes with the passage of light nor spoils the beauty. But these diamonds are extremely rare and will command a high price. To determine a diamond's clarity grading, it must be examined under a 10x magnification by a trained, skilled eye. What minute inclusions there may be make every diamond unique. These are, in fact, nature's fingerprints and do not mar the diamond's beauty nor endanger its durability. Without high magnification, you may never see these inclusions. However, the fewer there are, the rarer your diamond will be.

Diamond Clarity Chart:

Color
The most prized diamonds are colorless diamonds, because their beauty depends entirely upon their remarkable optical properties. In such diamonds, all the colors of the rainbow are reflected back to your eye. While the majority of gem diamonds appear to be colorless, others can contain increasing shades of yellow to brown, some of which are referred to as champagne diamonds. Other diamonds of exceptional color -- red, blue, green, pink and amber -- are known as "Fancies." The color grading scale varies from totally colorless to light color or tinted. The difference between one grade and its neighbor is very subtle. Experts never try to remember color; they use master diamonds of known color for comparison.

Diamond Color Scale:

Cut
Many people confuse cut with the shape of a diamond. The shape you select is a matter of individual taste, and today the skill and imagination of the craftsmen only limit your choice. It is their efforts during every stage of the fashioning process that reflects the maximum amount of light back to the eye. Most round, brilliant-cut or fancy-shaped diamonds possess 58 carefully angled flat surfaces, called facets. It is the precision of each facet's placement that will affect the amount of fire, brilliance and ultimate beauty of your Diamond.

When a diamond is cut to good proportions, light is reflected from one facet to another and then dispersed through the crown, or the top of the stone (Figure A). If the cut of the diamond is too deep, some light escapes through the opposite side of the pavilion, or bottom (Figure B). If the cut is too shallow, light escapes through the pavilion before it can be reflected (Figure C).

Popular Diamond Shapes

Precious Metals

Gold
Gold, a true example of a wonderful metal! It will not corrode, rust, or tarnish and although it is very strong, it is also the most malleable of all metals. The purity of gold is measured in karats, and in 24 parts. 24K gold is gold in its purest form; 12K gold is 50% gold and 50% alloy. 24K gold is very soft and is not ideal for jewelry and its everyday use and wear. Alloys such as silver, copper, nickel and zinc are added to gold for strength and color. 18k gold is durable yet has a beautiful appearance. 14K gold is very strong due to the amount of alloy included and still offers a beautiful shine. This is the most common karat used in jewelry. 10K gold is the strongest of the karats containing 41.7% gold and a larger amount of alloy.

Color - White Gold vs. Yellow Gold
The color of gold is established by the percent of alloy added to the gold. When gold is alloyed with copper, silver, and zinc, the shades of yellow will differ. The less alloy the brighter the gold’s color will be. If gold is alloyed with nickel, copper, and zinc, it turns to white gold. Yellow gold and white gold normally share the same malleability and strength as each other. White gold’s color is comparable to platinum, but these two metals have separate properties and vary widely in cost. White gold can also contain Rhodium, which is a form of the platinum family. This is usually added as a plating which brightens the white color. Because the two are so similar, choosing between the two depends upon a person’s individual taste.

Platinum
Platinum is relatively rare, and is more valuable than gold. It has become the most precious of all metals used in jewelry. Its popularity has surfaced in recent years due to its durability and nice silver–white color. Platinum is heavy and is offered in a purer form. Small amounts of iridium and ruthenium, rare metals in the platinum family, are usually added to increase its hardness and durability. Jewelry that is made is usually 95% platinum and 5% alloy. Platinum is not measured in karats like gold, but is stamped PT or PLAT to identify that it is platinum and will be accompanied by the number 950. Jewelry settings made of platinum provide a nice accent to white diamonds. Platinum has less chance of turning color than white gold due to its purity. It can be polished easily to restore its beautiful finish. This metal is also an excellent choice for people who may be allergic to other metals such as nickel, which may be added to gold.

Silver
Silver is another popular metal used in jewelry. It is bright and durable, and more abundant than gold. It does not carry the popularity of gold or platinum because it does tarnish and loose its bright shiny color easily. Jewelers will avoid using silver in a diamond setting or as fine jewelry because of this. Silver is less expensive because of its flaws and is more readily available than gold or platinum.

Titanium
Titanium is a light, strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant (including resistance to sea water and chlorine) transition metal with a silvery-white metallic color. Titanium can be alloyed with other elements such as iron and aluminum to produce strong lightweight alloys. The two most useful properties of the metal form are corrosion resistance, and the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any metal. In its unalloyed condition, titanium is as strong as steel, but 45% lighter. The use of Titanium in the jewelry industry is becoming increasingly popular because of its attractive characteristics such as its durability and resistance to corrosion.

Commercially pure titanium can be cut, polished, engraved, and reworked using traditional jewelers equipment. Although harder and more resilient than other jewelry materials, it can be safely removed by using standard cutting tools.

Tungsten Carbide
Tungsten Carbide is a chemical compound containing tungsten and carbon, similar to titanium carbide. Its extreme hardness makes it useful in the manufacture of cutting tools, abrasives and bearings, as a cheaper and more heat-resistant alternative to diamond. Tungsten carbide is also used as a scratch-resistant material for jewelry including watch bands and wedding rings.

Tungsten carbide can now be found in the inventory of some jewelers, most notably as the primary material in men's wedding bands. When used in this application the bands appear with a lustrous dark hue often polished to a mirror finish. The finish is highly resistant to scratches and scuffs, holding its mirror-like shine for years.

Gemstones

About Gemstones
Gemstones are naturally occurring crystalline, a form of a mineral. Gemstones have the most intense, naturally occuring color of any other material on this planet. Gemstones span the entire rainbow in color and have become infamous by the use of their names, e.g. "Ruby Red" and "Emerald Green". Gemstones are known for their beauty, value, and durability, which allows for their passing from one generation to the next. Throughout time, gemstones have charmed and dazzled people from all over the world. Colored gemstones are highly prized, and are used and cherished in many ways. For instance, the many gemstones in the "Crown Jewels" represent power, strength, and wealth for the Royal family. A time-honored tradition that has been passed along is the birthstone. Birthstones are the gems which represent the month you were born. These birthstones are given as gifts to celebrate a person’s life, and are often thought to be a reflection of their personality. Like people, gemstones are all different so there is something for every taste.

Precious & Semi-Precious
There are two classifications of gemstones: Precious and Semi-Precious. Precious stones are Sapphires, Rubies, and Emeralds. These three gems are the only stones that are called precious. Semi-Precious stones are Amethyst, Aquamarine, Citrine, Garnet, Onyx, Opal, Peridot, Tanzanite, and Topaz. All gems, precious or semi-precious, are valuable. Their value depends on many elements including color, size, quality, and rarity.

Enhancements
Because of the rarity of excellent sized and quality stones, some gemstones are enhanced. Jewelers have developed ways to enhance the appearance of many stones. Heating them is the most common. It has been a common practice for many years to heat gemstones to bring out their brilliant color. There are other types of treatments used. Oiling and waxing is one. This helps protect the stone and eliminates visible flaws like lines and marks that will naturally occur in a stone. This is done mostly with emeralds, because of their common natural flaws. Sapphires may have their color enhanced by diffusion, which is a chemical treatment. Another way to enhance the color is with radiation treatment, another natural process that occurs while the stone is formed and is used to bring out the color that nature did not finish. These processes are all very common and are a standard practice in the jewelry industry. These practices are used on natural occurring stones and should not be confused with "Lab Created" stones.

Special Care for Colored Gemstones
The best way to clean your gemstones is to take them to any Fred Meyer Jewelers or Littman Jewelers on a regular basis for a free cleaning and inspection. We recommend every six months. This will insure that your gemstones are cleaned properly and checked for any damage or problems. In between inspections, cleaning your gemstones is as easy as 1,2,3! All you need is a cup or bowl of warm, soapy water (mild soap, e.g. liquid dishwashing soap) and a soft brush. Let your gems soak for about 20 – 30 minutes. Gently brush them with the soft brush to take off excessive dirt, then rinse off and you're done. This is the easiest way to clean your jewelry and will not harm your stones. Because some gemstones are treated, cleaning them in harsh chemicals or brushing them too hard or too much may cause damage. In emeralds, natural cracks and flaws can worsen with improper care. Along with emeralds, pearls and opals require special care. These items should be cleaned and inspected by a professional.

*Always clean away from sink and when rinsing, plug your drain, jewelry can be slippery when wet!

Birthstone Chart

Pearls

About Pearls
Unlike gemstones, produced deep inside the Earth, pearls are created by living creatures called mollusks. Mollusks commonly have a soft body and a hard exterior shell, such as a clam or snail has. These animals live in marine and freshwater habitats as well as on land. The evolutionary history of this group extends back millions of years, with approximately 100,000 species of mollusks alive today. Any mollusk that produces a shell can produce a pearl. Nevertheless, naturally occurring pearls are rare, found in perhaps one of every 10,000 animals. The cultured pearl industry, which has flourished since the early 20th century, has developed techniques to greatly improve these odds. Indeed, more pearls are produced now than at any time in human history.

How Pearls Form
Contrary to popular belief, pearls hardly ever result from the intrusion of a grain of sand into an oyster's shell. Instead, a pearl forms when an irritant such as a wayward food particle becomes trapped in the mollusk. The animal senses the object and coats it with layers of aragonite and conchiolin. These two materials are the same substances the animal uses to build its shell.

In most pearls, the mineral aragonite is arranged in sheets of flat, six-sided crystals. Between each sheet, the mollusk secretes a very thin layer of the membrane-forming protein conchiolin. This composite material is called nacre or mother-of-pearl. The crystalline structure of nacre reflects light in a unique way, giving so-called nacreous pearls their high luster. Some pearls are not nacreous, instead have a low-luster, porcelain like surface.

Because a pearl is the product of a biological process, its surface often shows minor imperfections. When a mollusk secretes the microscopic layers that make up a pearl, each layer does not always encircle the entire pearl. These uneven layers create additional irregularities on the surface. As a result, it is easy to distinguish a real pearl from an artificial one by rubbing it gently across your teeth: a real pearl will feel gritty and an artificial pearl will feel smooth and slippery.

Size and Shape
Pearls come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes. Most people think of a pearl as round. The truth is that irregularly shaped pearls are more common in nature, while perfectly round pearls are extremely rare. A pearl's size and shape depend on the species of mollusk that produced the pearl, how long it took to form, and where the pearl formed inside the animal. There are no guarantees on a pearl's size and shape, which reflect such variables as the temperature and chemistry of the water, as well as the health of the mollusk.

Color
Pearls occur naturally in a spectacular array of colors, ranging from white to gold, purple and black. A pearl's color depends on both the species of mollusk that produced the pearl and the environment in which the animal lived. Crystals of aragonite are white or colorless. The natural color of a pearl is mostly due to conchiolin, which contains organic pigments.

One of the most distinctive features of a nacreous pearl is the way it seems to glow from within. This property, known as "luster," gives a pearl its unusual beauty. Luster results from the reflection of light rays not only off the surface of the pearl, but also off the inner layers of nacre. The multiple layers of nacre also contribute to the "iridescence" or "orient" of pearls—a characteristic that resembles the shimmer seen on a soap bubble. The layers of nacre act like tiny prisms, refracting light so that it appears to show all the colors of the rainbow.

Value
Unlike gemstones such as diamonds, pearls are not judged by a single international standard of quality. Various systems have been developed for grading pearls on the basis of luster, color, size, shape, surface and iridescence. Jewelers sort pearls according to grade, grouping together gems of similar quality. Although mollusks do most of the work of making pearls, humans use a variety of techniques to improve the quality of pearls or to introduce effects not found in nature. Such methods range from simple washing and buffing to more radical treatments such as exposing pearls to radiation. Despite these common "enhancements," the pearl industry still favors the high-quality, blemish-free spherical pearl as its most perfect form.

Freshwater Pearls
Pearl mussels live in lakes, rivers and streams. These freshwater mollusks produce pearls that can rival those of marine mollusks in luster and diverse color. And some species of freshwater pearl mussels are known to have produced dozens of pearls at a time. The local freshwater pearls of Europe, Asia and North America have been prized for hundreds and even thousands of years. In the early 1900s, the many species of North American pearl mussels supplied the thick mother-of-pearl needed for the button industry then booming in the Midwest. Today, freshwater mussel shells provide material for bead nuclei, which pearl farmers around the world implant in marine pearl oysters to create cultured pearls.

Unlike the larvae of marine pearl oysters, the specialized larvae of freshwater pearl mussels must attach to a fish for survival. Their tiny hooks cling to the fish's fins or gills until the larvae develop enough to drop off and settle at the bottom of a lake or streambed. The attached larvae feed on particles from the fish's food supply, and the fish carry them to new habitats. Because the environment must sustain both the larvae and the fish on which they depend, the presence or absence of pearl mussels may indicate the relative health of a river or lake.

How to Care For Your Pearls
Cosmetics, household cleaning products, and other chemicals can damage or change the appearance of your pearls. The layers of nacre that form a pearl make it a soft substance by industry standards. These layers can be worn off or damaged if mistreated. Avoid applying these products when wearing pearls. If contact is made, be sure and wipe off the pearls gently or wash them with warm, soapy water. This will help keep the beautiful luster of your pearls looking new. You should always have your pearl strands inspected regularly by a jeweler. With normal wear, strands need to be re-strung every few years.

How To Spot the Perfect Ring

On your mark, get set, search!

There’s a galaxy of choices out there, and the best way to start is by browsing right here through our ring selection! Start flipping through bridal magazines or even visit one of our store locations. Not sure what style is right for you? Look at the jewelry you already own – it’s often a good indicator of what you’d like in engagement and wedding rings. Do you favor white metal over yellow gold? Do you have a modern or vintage style? Is a classic style for you or something more contemporary?

A perfect fit

You’ll want to choose a ring that matches your personal style, but there are also a few guidelines for selecting a stone shape that flatters your hand. If you have shorter fingers, try a marquise, oval or emerald cut. These shapes will elongate your fingers. If you have a wide finger or have larger knuckles, try a setting with pavé or one with rows of diamonds for balance. There are really no wrong choices – when you find the right one, you’ll know.

The Four Cs

Once you’ve decided on a shape, it’s time to learn about color, cut, clarity and carat. If you aren’t already familiar with the Four C’s, now’s the time to read up on them so you will be able to make an informed decision when you are ready to choose your ring.

Sizing it up

Don’t sacrifice quality for size. A smaller stone that’s higher in quality will be worth more in the long run. But if the diamond's size is a major concern for you, you may want consider alternate shapes such as; oval, pear and marquise.

For the Groom

Guys play tough, and their rings should too. Platinum and titanium are all durable metals that won’t wimp out on him. The polished gold band is still the most popular style of men’s wedding ring.

Comfort is key

A wedding ring may be the only piece of jewelry some men wear, so the less obtrusive it is, the less he’ll notice it. Ergonomic bands with rounded edges and surfaces are the most comfortable styles.

Whatever you decide remember that it’s your ring, no one else’s. Make sure it ’s something you love – a keepsake to cherish through the years to come.