Yellow Radiant Diamonds

[juschuma]

I''m looking to buy a Yellow Radiant Diamond somewhere between 1 and 2 carats in size. What factors in a Yellow Radiant are more and/or less important than a white diamond? As an example...Is the ideal depth different for Yellow vs. White? Is the clarity less important in Yellow vs. White?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

 

[valeria101]

Date: 6/1/2005 7:44:04 PM
Author:juschuma

What factors in a Yellow Radiant are more and/or less important than a white diamond?

Color - allot more, then spread (size for weight) and weight and cost are no different. Brilliance and color might not be optimized by the same cut prameters - and I surely do not know the details here. Of the two, color has more say about price.

I would not use table & depth numbers for any guesswork about fancy color radiants. Those are not tremendously useful for colorless either: the radiant cut is vastly more complicated than round brilliant where grading cut by numbers is sometimes used... Even size does not depend very closely on total depth alone, so it is allot easier to just read diameter for size instead of guessing if this is more or less large than it should be based on depth (well, 50% is still shallow and 80% deep - but inbetween the lines are rather blurred).

Just my 0.2, as usual.

Is the stone you are considering presented online ? Just curious. The variation of color between fancy yellows is not told well by pictures anyway, but it is nice to see the shape. The looks of radiants is not all that standardized - there are different looks to these stones. Have you seen this one ?

 

[oldminer]

Color is of prime importance on every colored gem, including diamonds. The type and character of light return, the durability facors, sufficient clarity, a decent weight to apparent size ratio all also count to differing extents, but a great color type is ultimately one of the most important aspects.

It is far more complex than selecting a round diamond, but depends on less science and more thoughtful looking and shopping. It takes more time to find a winner as there are many that just aren''t all that good for sale that one must get past first. Best of luck with the challenge.

 

[diamondsbylauren]

Two salient responses.
To elaborate:
As Ana said- there''s a large variety of table/depth combos that work well in fancy color radiant cut diamonds.
Generally speaking, the deepest colors usually have slightly greater depths- although I have seen a vivid yellow radiant with 60% depth.


As David Atlas mentioned- color- is very important .
it''s kind of like the old joke.
What''s the three most important things to look for in a vivid yellow diamond
1) color
2) color
3) color

There''s many reasons for this- for one thing, the deeper the yellow, the less visible most imperfections are.

Within each grade Fancy Light yellow, Fancy Yellow, Fancy Intense Yellow, and Fancy Vivid Yellow- within each there is a large difference between a stone which borders on the next darker grade, and one bordering the next lighter shade. The deeper the color, the stronger the price , in many cases.

On lighter fancy colors the rules change somewhat.