what does it mean when a diamond has "life"?

[prinkles]

Just wondering because I''ve heard this said before....

 

[Skippy123]

Date: 7/8/2008 3:55:55 PM
Author:prinkles
Just wondering because I''ve heard this said before....

probably sparkle and fire.

 

[dockman3]

That''s a really subjective thing to say and everybody has their own definition. They also say that the diamond "speaks to me" or things like that. It just means, to me anyway, that the diamond sparkles and has some fire and good scintillation so that when it moves around, it looks like little bits of light are jumping off of it. It also can just mean the opposite of dead, or a diamond that has no sparkle and just sits there and doesn''t reflect any light.

 

[prinkles]

that makes a lot of sense...thanks

 

[dockman3]

You''re welcome! Come on back with any other questions you''ve got.

 

[DiamondExpert]

eye-catching brilliance, scintillation and dispersion!!

...bada bling!

 

[honey22]

Personally, I understood this the minute I opened the little box from Whiteflash and saw my new ACA! It''s hard to describe, it was really alive - a little ball of sparkliness!

 

[Dancing Fire]

means the diamond is still "breathing" not dead yet.

 

[Lorelei]

It basically means the bling factor, the sparkle and brilliance!

 

[Paul-Antwerp]

You need to understand the history of the term.

As far as I know, it goes back to the ancient way in which traders looked at diamonds. Here in Antwerp, nobody talked about brightness, fire or scintillation, probably because there was no scientific basis for these terms yet. The term used in the trade was ''leven'', Dutch for ''life''.

Without any scientific basis or a real definition of the term, it was used and abused at the same time. Traders would judge stones with backlighting and call the bright light-leakage ''life''. Others would move the stone and call the scintillation ''life''.

In any case, the term traveled along with the diamonds, and is still widely used by many in the trade. There still is no definition for the term, and hence it probably still means nothing. In other words, every individual probably has his own definition for the term, and uses it in that way.

Live long,