Black Diamonds

[MarLindaJacobs]

Any thoughts?

 

[movie zombie]

designers are using them. why not?

 

[kenny]

Not my cup of tea.
To me a diamond's optical properties and the resulting light performance is an important part of the show.

 

[movie zombie]

http://famousdiamonds.tripod.com/blackorlovdiamond.html

i'd like to see this one in person........

gurhan does a lot of high karat gold with black diamond beads. i love the look.

kenny, have you seen a grey diamond IRL? does it have more light dispersion?

 

[Pandora II]

Keep well away - there's a lot of black moissonite being passed off as black diamond at the moment (and black CZ).

In any case, most black diamonds are pretty icky IMHO. If you want a black stone, then go for a black spinel or a black sapphire that actually have some glitter to them and aren't just one big inclusion.

 

[Edward Bristol]

Black spinel looks 100% the same, is untreated and cheaper and bigger and all...

 

[Barrett]

Pandora, Kenny, Edward...agree, agree, and agree.

 

[movie zombie]

yep. however, i haven't seen any "glitter" to black spinel......

 

[Pandora II]

Really?

I was looking at one a couple of weeks ago... a competition where you had to ID 4 black stones by eye alone (and without taking them out of the box either). There was a garnet (melanite), a tourmaline, an epidote and a spinel. Embarrassingly, out of over 200 international gemmologists only 1 person got it right (wasn't me - I only got 2)!

The spinel was by far the nicest. They glitter because Spinel is hard enough to take a high lustre and light reflects well off the facets. When you cut the stone to maximise this effect - rather than cutting for light return from within the stone - you can get a very attractive result - certainly much more attractive than any black diamond I have ever seen.

 

[T L]

Black spinel looks 100% the same, is untreated and cheaper and bigger and all...

Do they have as fine a luster though Ed?

The thing with black diamonds is that because of their tremendous hardness, they take on an amazing polish and shine (luster). Most black diamonds are treatd to get them to be an even black color, although there are some natural ones. Black spinel is another alternative, but never seeing a black spinel next to a black diamond, I cannot fully comment on the difference in luster on either.

 

[Pandora II]

Black spinel looks 100% the same, is untreated and cheaper and bigger and all...

Do they have as fine a luster though Ed?

The thing with black diamonds is that because of their tremendous hardness, they take on an amazing polish and shine (luster). Most black diamonds are treatd to get them to be an even black color, although there are some natural ones. Black spinel is another alternative, but never seeing a black spinel next to a black diamond, I cannot fully comment on the difference in luster on either.

Not Ed, but I think it's comparable. Most black diamonds have a bit of a salt and pepper look about them and are also inclined to be brittle.

Here's a black spinel from Gemselect:

 

[T L]

Black spinel looks 100% the same, is untreated and cheaper and bigger and all...

Do they have as fine a luster though Ed?

The thing with black diamonds is that because of their tremendous hardness, they take on an amazing polish and shine (luster). Most black diamonds are treatd to get them to be an even black color, although there are some natural ones. Black spinel is another alternative, but never seeing a black spinel next to a black diamond, I cannot fully comment on the difference in luster on either.

Not Ed, but I think it's comparable. Most black diamonds have a bit of a salt and pepper look about them and are also inclined to be brittle.

Here's a black spinel from Gemselect:

I love the luster, and well, that looks just like a black diamond.

I love that deep metallic luster that black diamonds get.

 

[kenny]

kenny, have you seen a grey diamond IRL? does it have more light dispersion?

Sorry MZ, I just saw this.
I have never seen a grey diamond IRL, but I suspect a diamond's hue (if you could call grey a hue) itself would not affect dispersion.
Disperson is separating white light into its component colors.
It happens in diamonds, and even in aquariums, when the angles of the light and the surfaces facilitate it.
It's not like a blue diamond give you more blue dispersion - though the blue material will slightly (probably imperceptibly) attenuate every color except blue.
I do see red dispersion in my green diamond and green dispersion in my red diamond and yellow dispersion in my blue diamond - in all 3 instances the body color is the opposite of the dispersed color.

Cut certainly would affect dispersion.
Very strong tone/saturation would reduce the intensity of the light output.
Less light output is not actually less dispersion, but may seem so since less of the dispersed light is getting out.

At least that's what seems reasonable to me.

 

[LD]

I used to hate black diamonds because I didn't see the attraction. I then bought a 4ct pear and completely changed my mind. When surrounded by white diamonds they can look amazing (and have the benefit of durability). Mine has very cool (and very weird) fluorescence that is fascinating.

In terms of grey diamonds, I own one (a heart) and it performs in a way that you wouldn't expect. I see flashes of green, blue, yellow, pink etc. A daylight photo is below. I have the vendor's video of it where you can see the how it performs but it's saved within another document and I don't know how to transfer it to here - anybody have any ideas?

 

[movie zombie]

would love to see those IRL! the flour is interesting.....and there is something about that little gray that makes me want to explore gray diamonds.

 

[kenny]

Yes, I'm all for gray rights.

 

[movie zombie]

LOL