I wanted to write this just incase others end up feeling the way I did about diamond clarity - and clarity here meaning only the topic of feathers.
Years and years ago I read here about feathers being dangerous and I did get paranoid about them in a big way. I was only buying then a small SI1 diamond and the feather could not really be seen unless under magnification.
The answers I got were not false and to an educated person great. However to an uneducated person on diamonds it just instilled panic. Things like if they break the surface, I couldn't see that on a small diamond with no magnification, I have since found out all feathers do break the surface, this was information from GIA grading courses posted class work and graduates posting here.
Now I now that I3 diamonds can have large feathers which would perhaps be detrimental to their durability. I know that GIA have put online that durability can come into play in I1, I2, I3 stones. However, the experts posting here and back in the day they were experts, people who were appraisers like the late rockdoc and also vendors, made it seem to me, maybe it was my misjudgement that the diamond I had was maybe, remember I say maybe as that was my interpretation too, within this category. Things were said about if it was not graded by GIA, which it was not as it was only a tiny stone, then it could be any grade. I think with my heightened fear and vendors knowledge of all stones out there with lots being poor stones, a lot was said about maul stones etc that I came away with a huge impression that my diamond was not going to last.
Now this is the part I wanted to write this about. I believe with my self-education through reading online and there was not much back then and a jeweller who did not touch on the grades at all just a pamphlet showing a drawing of clarity colour, etc, that I got an appetite or really a need, a paranoid need, a stupid need, an OCD maybe feeling, that I need to know. I could not get another larger or better diamond at the time and in my mind my SI1 was little better than an I7 clarity maybe and was going to fall apart and at the time the diamond was sentimental to me and very important to me.
So this is where self education becomes bad. I read up about diamonds, found out about cleavage, and seem to in my mind have combined the feather and cleavage thing together. Cleavage is really just of use to know to a diamond cutter who is cleaving the rough diamond. I read how diamonds have perfect cleavage, meaning they have a clean break rather than good cleavage say where they will still break but the break will not be straight or smooth.
I read from those educating here that diamonds with large feathers could be dangerous due to cleavage.
I asked questions and had people reply like Garry Holloway and Jonathan at Good Old Gold try to convince me that feathers were not all that bad and scary. Some said the appraiser was using scare tactics. Others said they knew him and he was genuinely letting me know in my answers how he felt about such things as feathers, strain etc. He was a great man I believe. I do remember in one thread where I was asking if crystals were better that he said that under high magnification he notices that most crystals have feathers around them, he called them a name I can't remember but said they were like circular and flat. He by this time was also trying to convince me that some feathers were still okay, probably because he recognised I was paranoid about them by now and crazy asking the same questions over and over with different bits added in that I wondered if this or that thing would make it different i.e. okay. As I said it was my heightened paranoia as I really did not have proper education about diamonds and his replies which were probably focused on diamonds maybe of I2 quality, UNGRADED BY A LEADING LAB and larger 1 carat and above stones. I would also say at this time there was a lot of telling people to stay away from lesser labs as there is today too.
I was thinking about this last night as what came back into my mind, was a post about a diamond which had been heard of somewhere that the feather had grown, something they said was very rare to happen as the stone had not been damaged and there was talk that perhaps water had got in through an open feather and as water expands when frozen this had altered the diamond. Sounds mind boggling to me now but that was the story.
I was therefore left thinking my little diamond about a third of a carat or less was going to disintegrate, cleave in two etc.
I remember Garry Holloway said he had a theory that diamonds with feathers were less likely to cleave apart and of the chipped diamonds he say from his customers they were impact and chips which caused tiny cleavages around the stone. Remember the stones were not cleaved in two that would have been my interpretation, either that the diamond went into two pieces through a feather or cleavage, however what he was saying was to try to convince me about feathers not being too bad.
So another thing I found out about in my reading was parting, and how some crystals had parting. Really it is like trying to diagnose an illness when you are not a doctor.
So if anyone is reading this far, this is written in the hope that newbies will not get paranoid about diamonds in the way I did. I have read of others feeling their stone was not great due to cut and lack of sparkle. I was not really going there as I was still to hung up about clarity back then and in particular feathers. My little stone did sparkle so was okay cut although it would have been more toward 60/60 but it was a generic diamond, no lab report, not expensive at the time. I want newbies to know that ideal cut diamonds are expensive just as high colour and high clarity and large carat weight are too. Budgets increase on this forum usually and wants get huge. I do thing good advice is to have a budget before you start looking at diamonds and stick to it. I have read this many times. After you have bought your diamond for engagement then if you get into diamonds, take time and realise it is an expensive hobby which when it is for second and third diamonds is really nothing to do with engagement. Few people will get a 3 carat good quality stone for an engagement so don't get the want for it, these stones are for people addicted or who have an unusual love of diamonds.
So to finish I would say regarding feathers that if they are large and at the edge they may make your diamond crumble a bit more in that area, but then a diamond can be repolished if it is damaged. If the feathers are of this type though I would think you WILL see them with your naked eye. I know we don't want our diamonds damaged but an SI1 diamond feather with any damage after wear would probably still be invisible to the naked eye. Yes it should be checked by a jeweller and if it is going to affect the stone they will repolish that area even if not the whole stone if it is not an expensive stone which warrants it and the money you would have to spend upon it to get it back to Ideal. I would also say that even for expensive diamonds, recut charges which we have seen here from Brian Gavin diamonds are not that high considering the cost of the actual diamond they are microscopic.
So newbie, don't be like me, enjoy your diamonds, that was what I did until I self-educated but I have now come out the other side. It is more important to love your jewellery and your engagement ring than to hate it and become paranoid about it which can even maybe affect your health.
As an aside, one day I went into a local jeweller, at the same time as I was thinking all this rubbish about feathers, and they were talking about a phone call from a client, whose diamond had completely broken in two, the assistants were speaking to the owner about it and he was telling them about cleavage and I remember looking in the cases hearing all this, trying to pretend I wasn't listening and thinking to myself, that will be cleavage. It is a wonder the word feather never came into my mind but it didn't. So in the real world we some how do know but online we become paranoid. I remember the jeweller saying to the assistants that this was not something that would happen often, he had been in business for year as had his father before him. The stone had received a sharp knock.
Silly post this maybe, but I just wanted to put it out here. Appreciate the diamond you have even if it is not the best technically, it can still be for sentimental meaning. Even if you are not sentimental now you may be when you are older. You can always get more diamonds if you can afford them and feel they are worth the money to you at that time as appreciation for diamonds can change too like anything else. You may still love them but they will not be your be all and most loved possession.
Years and years ago I read here about feathers being dangerous and I did get paranoid about them in a big way. I was only buying then a small SI1 diamond and the feather could not really be seen unless under magnification.
The answers I got were not false and to an educated person great. However to an uneducated person on diamonds it just instilled panic. Things like if they break the surface, I couldn't see that on a small diamond with no magnification, I have since found out all feathers do break the surface, this was information from GIA grading courses posted class work and graduates posting here.
Now I now that I3 diamonds can have large feathers which would perhaps be detrimental to their durability. I know that GIA have put online that durability can come into play in I1, I2, I3 stones. However, the experts posting here and back in the day they were experts, people who were appraisers like the late rockdoc and also vendors, made it seem to me, maybe it was my misjudgement that the diamond I had was maybe, remember I say maybe as that was my interpretation too, within this category. Things were said about if it was not graded by GIA, which it was not as it was only a tiny stone, then it could be any grade. I think with my heightened fear and vendors knowledge of all stones out there with lots being poor stones, a lot was said about maul stones etc that I came away with a huge impression that my diamond was not going to last.
Now this is the part I wanted to write this about. I believe with my self-education through reading online and there was not much back then and a jeweller who did not touch on the grades at all just a pamphlet showing a drawing of clarity colour, etc, that I got an appetite or really a need, a paranoid need, a stupid need, an OCD maybe feeling, that I need to know. I could not get another larger or better diamond at the time and in my mind my SI1 was little better than an I7 clarity maybe and was going to fall apart and at the time the diamond was sentimental to me and very important to me.
So this is where self education becomes bad. I read up about diamonds, found out about cleavage, and seem to in my mind have combined the feather and cleavage thing together. Cleavage is really just of use to know to a diamond cutter who is cleaving the rough diamond. I read how diamonds have perfect cleavage, meaning they have a clean break rather than good cleavage say where they will still break but the break will not be straight or smooth.
I read from those educating here that diamonds with large feathers could be dangerous due to cleavage.
I asked questions and had people reply like Garry Holloway and Jonathan at Good Old Gold try to convince me that feathers were not all that bad and scary. Some said the appraiser was using scare tactics. Others said they knew him and he was genuinely letting me know in my answers how he felt about such things as feathers, strain etc. He was a great man I believe. I do remember in one thread where I was asking if crystals were better that he said that under high magnification he notices that most crystals have feathers around them, he called them a name I can't remember but said they were like circular and flat. He by this time was also trying to convince me that some feathers were still okay, probably because he recognised I was paranoid about them by now and crazy asking the same questions over and over with different bits added in that I wondered if this or that thing would make it different i.e. okay. As I said it was my heightened paranoia as I really did not have proper education about diamonds and his replies which were probably focused on diamonds maybe of I2 quality, UNGRADED BY A LEADING LAB and larger 1 carat and above stones. I would also say at this time there was a lot of telling people to stay away from lesser labs as there is today too.
I was thinking about this last night as what came back into my mind, was a post about a diamond which had been heard of somewhere that the feather had grown, something they said was very rare to happen as the stone had not been damaged and there was talk that perhaps water had got in through an open feather and as water expands when frozen this had altered the diamond. Sounds mind boggling to me now but that was the story.
I was therefore left thinking my little diamond about a third of a carat or less was going to disintegrate, cleave in two etc.
I remember Garry Holloway said he had a theory that diamonds with feathers were less likely to cleave apart and of the chipped diamonds he say from his customers they were impact and chips which caused tiny cleavages around the stone. Remember the stones were not cleaved in two that would have been my interpretation, either that the diamond went into two pieces through a feather or cleavage, however what he was saying was to try to convince me about feathers not being too bad.
So another thing I found out about in my reading was parting, and how some crystals had parting. Really it is like trying to diagnose an illness when you are not a doctor.
So if anyone is reading this far, this is written in the hope that newbies will not get paranoid about diamonds in the way I did. I have read of others feeling their stone was not great due to cut and lack of sparkle. I was not really going there as I was still to hung up about clarity back then and in particular feathers. My little stone did sparkle so was okay cut although it would have been more toward 60/60 but it was a generic diamond, no lab report, not expensive at the time. I want newbies to know that ideal cut diamonds are expensive just as high colour and high clarity and large carat weight are too. Budgets increase on this forum usually and wants get huge. I do thing good advice is to have a budget before you start looking at diamonds and stick to it. I have read this many times. After you have bought your diamond for engagement then if you get into diamonds, take time and realise it is an expensive hobby which when it is for second and third diamonds is really nothing to do with engagement. Few people will get a 3 carat good quality stone for an engagement so don't get the want for it, these stones are for people addicted or who have an unusual love of diamonds.
So to finish I would say regarding feathers that if they are large and at the edge they may make your diamond crumble a bit more in that area, but then a diamond can be repolished if it is damaged. If the feathers are of this type though I would think you WILL see them with your naked eye. I know we don't want our diamonds damaged but an SI1 diamond feather with any damage after wear would probably still be invisible to the naked eye. Yes it should be checked by a jeweller and if it is going to affect the stone they will repolish that area even if not the whole stone if it is not an expensive stone which warrants it and the money you would have to spend upon it to get it back to Ideal. I would also say that even for expensive diamonds, recut charges which we have seen here from Brian Gavin diamonds are not that high considering the cost of the actual diamond they are microscopic.
So newbie, don't be like me, enjoy your diamonds, that was what I did until I self-educated but I have now come out the other side. It is more important to love your jewellery and your engagement ring than to hate it and become paranoid about it which can even maybe affect your health.
As an aside, one day I went into a local jeweller, at the same time as I was thinking all this rubbish about feathers, and they were talking about a phone call from a client, whose diamond had completely broken in two, the assistants were speaking to the owner about it and he was telling them about cleavage and I remember looking in the cases hearing all this, trying to pretend I wasn't listening and thinking to myself, that will be cleavage. It is a wonder the word feather never came into my mind but it didn't. So in the real world we some how do know but online we become paranoid. I remember the jeweller saying to the assistants that this was not something that would happen often, he had been in business for year as had his father before him. The stone had received a sharp knock.
Silly post this maybe, but I just wanted to put it out here. Appreciate the diamond you have even if it is not the best technically, it can still be for sentimental meaning. Even if you are not sentimental now you may be when you are older. You can always get more diamonds if you can afford them and feel they are worth the money to you at that time as appreciation for diamonds can change too like anything else. You may still love them but they will not be your be all and most loved possession.
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