Color is the presence of body color in a diamond. This is normally a yellowish body color that most often is not even seen unless compared against a truly colorless stone. This color is judged by grading a stone from the side against a stone of known quality.
The color grading scale runs from "D" or perfectly without color of any type on through Z, where the color is so bright that it is again considered to be desirable.
A number of things make this a difficult subject:
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Not all stones are varying shades of yellow. Sometimes the stones are colored by grown, or gray. Browns are considered less attractive than yellows, so the prices may tend to be slightly lower. A term that you might hear is "top light browns", which means the diamond(s) look very white when looking straight down at it, say when it is laying on a table, but look quite brown when viewing from the side.
- When a stone gets far enough "down" the scale, it starts looking attractive again and is called a "fancy". A fancy red diamond might cost as much as a $1,000,000 per carat, obviously not what most would refer to as "down" the scale.
- There is a common misconception that color is bad. This is not always true, as color in a diamond simply is. Many times it can be bad if the color is unattractive, but there are those who actually prefer a little color in their diamonds, since the warmer color of a J-K-L might actually look better against their skin than the hard perfect white of a D color diamond. There are simply more diamonds with color in them than without, usually a few atoms of nitrogen mixed in with the carbon. Since color in light shades is more common, they cost less than those with no color at all. Also, with the advent of diamond grading certificates, many people want to buy the paper since that is easier to understand the beauty. This increases both the desire for and the cost of the colorless stones.
- The cut of the diamond greatly affects how the color will show. An EightStar cut diamond, for example, will often look one to three color grades higher than a traditionally cut diamond of the same color. As can be seen by the picture below, cutting can make quite a difference.
We are looking for a stone that has great light and beauty when it comes to the color. If it is to be put into platinum, it is probably more important for the stone to be of a higher color, G or better. This will keep the stone's color from contrasting with the color of the metal
If you are going to mount the stone in white gold, it is less important to have a very high color, as white gold is itself a yellowish white rather than a true white color. This is due to alloyed nickel and silver that is mixed with the yellow gold to give a whitish color. With platinum, alloyed white metal such as iridium is mixed with the white platinum.
If the stone is to be mounted in yellow metal and it is well made, then you can use a lower color and it will still look white by comparison. This allows someone on a budget to spend more on the clarity, cut, or carat weight of the stone. However, using a D color stone in yellow metal is quite beautiful and is of course a personal preference.
Our experience here at Winfields is that many of our customers actually like the warmer tint of yellow in their stones, and especially the slightly warmer dispersion that comes out of a K-L-M colored stone rather then the harder, colder dispersion that comes out of a colorless stone in the D-E-F color range. We have many stones of different colors, so don't hesitate to ask us to view our assortment of stones so you can best decide on the stone. If the "lower" colored rating is to your liking, you will find it comes with a lower price.
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