older diamonds darker than bright white new diamonds

I''d imagine it has to do with modern cutting techniques?

Dear Ronda


When you say "older" what are you referring to ?  If your referring to how the diamonds cut in the early half of the 20th century were cut, that is a pretty basic explanation.

Typically diamond ( round ones particularly) were cut with high crowns and small tables. Some that had tables from 49% to some i the 53% area, had more spectral colors and refracted less white light.

A basic sort of rule is the larger the table, the smaller the smaller surrounding facets are, and that larger the table the more white light. Conversely the small the table the larger the crown facets were which reflect the spectral colors.

For years there have been debates on what the best combination of the two are. But the "most attractive" characteristic for one person could be different when viewed by a different person.

Around 1935 or so, to 1975 ish diamond cutters found way to increase weight from the rough stones in a different manner. The result of this change was that larger table stones were being cut, and at first glance some were very brilliant, ( white light return), however these stonewith larger tables  lacked the spectral colors of the older stones.

Then the term Ideal cut became more known due to the efforts of the American Gem Society and its members, and AGS introduced a cut rating system. But still most diamonds'' cut quality analysis was abused, with the parameters primarily only rating the table size and the total depth of the stone.

Today far more attributes of the diamond''s gemetrical proportions are being analyzed but more are to come in the future,as knowledge and technology advances.

Hope this answers your question.

Rockdoc

maybe the older guys needed cleaning?

Good info :)  I have my grandmothers engagement ring from the early 1940''s and even mine from the early 80''s seem to have a completely different look to them than the new ones.  I looked at some used stones from a local jewler and the stones are definately different in their look and coloring. 

Thank you

A diamond''s body color will NOT be affected by age.
period.
The stones you''ve compared may have started out as different colors.
If the diamond is not clean, it''s not possible to see the color.

What are you really seeing?  The brilliance of the stone or the color?  Warmer colors were more popular years ago. 

I find that color in older stones is more commonly seen than in the newer stones. I see a lot more older stones graded J-M.