What a Diamond Report Usually Covers

A diamond report is a laboratory’s description of one stone. It is not a receipt, and it is not a guarantee that you will like the jewel in a particular light. Reading five ideas is enough for a first purchase.

The four words everyone repeats

Carat is weight, not size on the finger. Two stones of the same carat can face up differently if the cut is different. Colour, on the usual scale, runs toward less colour or more colour. Clarity is about what is inside or on the surface, and whether you can see it. Cut is how the stone was proportioned and polished, which decides a great deal of the brightness. A report that lists these is doing its ordinary job.

None of the four is “the” quality by itself. A heavy stone with a poor cut can look smaller and duller than a lighter stone that was cut well. Ask to see the stone, not only the paper.

What else may be written

The report may mention shape, measurements, polish, symmetry, and fluorescence. Fluorescence is a glow under ultraviolet light. It is not damage. It sometimes changes how a stone looks in sunlight, and sometimes it does not. The report may also state a treatment, or that none was detected. “Not detected” means the laboratory did not find it with its methods. It is careful language. Treat it as careful language.

The report number should match the inscription on the girdle when the stone is inscribed. If there is no inscription, the shop should still be able to show that the paper belongs to that stone, by the measurements and the plot of marks, where the laboratory drew them.

What the paper refuses to do

It does not set the making charge of the ring. It does not say the diamond will bring a result in a person’s life. It does not say a simulant is a diamond. If the jewel is a diamond simulant, there should be no diamond report presented as if it were one.

Keep a copy of the report with the bill. If the stone is reset later, the paper is how you recognise it.