Does color affect brilliance???

[mrmcpa]

Hi everyone-
After soaking up all this knowledge for the past 2-3 weeks, I decided to go out and hit the local B&M''s. The first place I went to was a small local guy in the "maul". The owner (a graduate gemologist) after telling him what I was looking for offered:
GIA certified, H color, VS2 clarity 1.03 RB stone retail price $8100 but he would discount it to me for $6425. PUL-LEESE!!

Obviously, in spite of my small amount of diamond knowledge he thought I was totally ignorant regarding prices. So I went to the next place--a free standing small local jeweler in town. After discussing what I was looking for (1. ex cut 2. H color or better and 3. clarity SI1 or better) he proceeds to tell me that my main priority should be color over cut! Then he brings out diamonds and shows me the difference in brilliance between F color stones and H color stones with the same clarity grades. So now I am totally confused.

These were GIA cert. stones so there were no grades on the cuts of the stones.
Does color truly make that much of a difference? When I compared the specs on the GIA certs of the stones, there were no discrepancies larger than .1 on the table, crown, etc., percentages. I don''t think he was showing me apples and oranges so to speak. This was out of my league, so I would appreciate any input.
Thanks.

Marla

 

[researcher]

I don't think color has anything to do with brilliance. My princess scored a triple VH on the BScope, and it's an "I" in color. I think some people just want you to spend more money. Then again, he may have just been using the wrong terminology (let's give him the benefit of the doubt). Will the stones in the D-F range look whiter? Yes. Be more brilliant? I've never heard that. If that was the case I would never have gone for anything in the near colorless range. IMO, cut is, and always should be, the most important "C".

 

[quaeritur]

Hmmm... I'm a total color snob -all about the Ds and Es- but having looked at D thru J color stones in great cuts (at GOG and some EightStars), I can't say that I found the color to affect the brilliance. I've become a cut convert -truly, in a face-up position, the top cuts really look fantastic, whatever the color. My preference is towards the icy whiteness, rather than the warmer hues, but either way, in a comparable cut, you should be seeing comparable brilliance. I'd look in a few other stores. Also, make sure each stone is perfectly clean -that can dampen brilliance more than aything! My hunch is that this jeweler wanted to sell you a higher priced diamond, and that's why he was pushing the premium colors.

In short, cut affects brilliance, color only affects the relative warmth/iciness of that brilliance. Find a jeweler with AGS certed stones with very close angles in different colors and compare those. Then you'll know it's apples to apples. No way to tell from the GIA certs if the stones you looked at were really similar. Of course, you may find your personal preference is for a higher color (I sure wish mine weren't!!!)

Good luck!

 

[verticalhorizon]

I think color does affect brilliance, but you have to be talking serious color. Look at the fancy intense yellows and rare pinks, blues, and reds. I wouldn't say that they are as brilliant as their white counterparts. But that just means that you really won't have to worry about your I, J, or K colored diamond if it's cut well.

Clarity certainly can effect it depending on the inclusion type and placement.

Here's a list from right here on PS that sort of lists the pricing heirarchy of a diamond.

 

[researcher]

VH~
You're right that, with lower colors and fancy colors there is probably some loss of brilliance. But, between an H and the higher colors? No way.

 

[quaeritur]

Just to clarify - I was assuming colorless thru say J or K in my previous post, assuming a fantastic cut.

 

[mrmcpa]

Hmmmm.. after all my studying on PS I thought cut was the main concern regarding brilliance also. The strangest thing about this guy was while he was in total agreement with getting a certified stone, he only dealt with GIA and EGL stones. He said , "GIA is the God of diamond grading." I asked about AGS and his response was, "I don't handle AGS stones and consider them inferior to GIA." That alone was a red flag to me since according to my research AGS not only grades that items GIA does but they address the cut of the stone as well. I am by no means finished with my search for my stone, but I thought this guy was a bit off in his opinions. He also made the statement that AGS would not certify (is that the correct vernacular) his shop because he did repair work for other jewelers in town. Another possible red flag.

 

[strmrdr]

I am still waiting to see a published study on this issue and no one seems to be able to point one out to me so it is likely there isnt one.
Rhino aka Jonathan at goodoldgold.com has stated that he hasnt noticed a difference in performance attributable to color in simular cut stones in the d-k range..

While that carries some weight with me it doesnt 100% satisfy my desire for seeing a more detailed and specific study on it.

Keep in mind that the field of diamond performance has historicaly been a off and on again study and it wasnt utill recently that a huge effert was put into it by a large number of people.
There is some disagreement amoung the experts in some areas and time will tell who is right if this time the studies keep going instead of fading away as they have in the past.

 

[strmrdr]

From my understanding being an AGS jeweler is harder to do than some others and carries with it a comittment to training and maintaining standards set by ags that are beyond what some others require.
Hopefully one of the experts can expand on my answer a little or currect me if im wrong...

 

[pqcollectibles]

I own well cut diamonds in colors ranging from E to J. I don't see that the color of the diamond has an affect on either brilliance or fire. I have some not so great cut H color diamonds that aren't as sparkly or brilliant as the rest. My J outperforms those H color diamonds hands down.

IMHO, it's the quality of the cut that has direct bearing on the amount of performance or lack thereof.

 

[Magnum]

I don't claim to be a diamond expert, but I'm pretty sure this holds for most substances. One of the main reasons a substance shows color is that it absorbs certain frequencies of light instead of reflecting it. (the only thing different between red and blue light is the frequency of the light wave.) Now obviously there are other ways to show color, like dispersion in a diamond which causes fire, but the main reason things like your shirt or your shoes or whatever else show color is because they absorb certain frequencies of light, and reflect others. Most light is white light which contains all colors, but when it hits your blue shirt, part of the light gets absorbed by the shirt, and the blue part of the light is reflected back. The same type of thing holds true for a diamond. The reason diamonds have "body color" is because some diamonds have extra particles, like nitrogen, that absorb certain frequencies of light, in this case in the blue range, which causes the diamond to have a yellow tint. The more nitrogen in the diamond, the yellower it is, because more blue light is being absorbed. So, if more light is being absorbed, then I think it's safe to say that less light is reflected back, in an equally cut diamond with more body color. Now, the question is, how much light needs to be absorbed before you actually notice the differrence in brilliance? That's the harder question. If someone like Rhino, who's looked at lots of different stones, says he can't tell a differeence in brilliance between colorless and near colorless stones of equal cut, then I'd say it's pretty safe to say that at least down to J/K, there's probably not enough light being absorbed to affect the brilliance of the stone. On a side note, the reason people say it's actually advantageous to have blue flouresence in yellow tinted stones is that in certain light (like sunlight) the stone will flouresce (emit) a blue color, which compensates for the blue that is absorbed by the stone, and will, thus, make the stone look whiter.

 

[valeria101]

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On 6/23/2004 6:06:11 PM mrmcpa wrote:



When I compared the specs on the GIA certs of the stones, there were no discrepancies larger than .1 on the table, crown, etc., percentages.

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NO - there should be no relation between color garde and briliance before hitting "fancy" something.

There are no angles on a GIA cert and with diamonds in hand there should be a better way to evaluate cut than reading numbers.