How Important is Grade When You're Shopping for an Engagement Ring?

So many bits of advice are available when it comes to choosing an engagement ring that it can be easy to feel overwhelmed.

As if it wasn’t enough to remember your 4 Cs of diamonds – cut, clarity, colour and carat weight – now you’ve got to judge the grade of these characteristics as well.

Consider this handy reference when you’re judging how important the grade of your diamonds will be to your engagement ring.

Grading plays a big role in determining the clarity of a diamond. An expert with a high magnification judges the pieces and the rates them for clarity.

Clarity refers to whether diamonds have internal “blemishes” or flaws. Many pieces have some sort of internal flaw, and many can be recognized with the naked eye even by an unskilled observer.

Grade ranges from pure, meaning without flaws at all, to various levels of “inclusions.” The smaller the “inclusion,” the cleaner the diamonds.

Diamonds are also graded by colour, the idea being no colour at all. Diamonds will sometimes, though, pick up and reflect trace elements in nature. The grading scale for colour ranges from colourless through tinted and various more obvious shades of yellow until it reaches the “fancy” marking, indicating it is very coloured. These are not considered as valuable as colourless.

The cut is also graded, as well it should be, considering it is the most important part. While most people worry about carat size, the cut of the diamond is what really catches the eye. If the diamond sparkles brilliantly, it has a quality cut. The grading ranges from excellent through average and then down to commercial grades used in industry tools.