Why do all these stones look dark?!

[soontomarry2]

I visited my jeweler for picking out a stone for the setting I have chosen. The setting is a halo setting with fairly large stones for a halo setting.

To get an idea of how the stone would look in the setting, he pulled out the CZ and set in some of the stones I was looking at. The setting was white gold. The first was a 1.25ct H Ideal cut, it looked DARK! It looked MUCH darker in the setting than the CZ did.

I told him this looks dark so we tried a 1.24 G Ideal cut, it to looked VERY dark!

Why do these look so dark? Is this typical? Out of the setting on the white paper they both looked very birght and very very close in color.

He mentioned that ideal cut stones look dark, is this true? I''m a little worried that my special lady may be disappointed on the big day!

 

[Dreamer_D]

Well cut diamonds tend to go "dark" in bright sunlight or in jewelry store lighting, it is just a feature of their optics. I am guessing that if you moved the diamond around it made all sorts of flashes of color, like fireworks? That is called fire, it is also a feature of a diamond''s optics in that lighting environment. In more diffuse lighting, like outside on a cloudy day or in regular overhead lighting, you will see something called "brilliance" and that might be what you think of more typically when you look at diamonds.

On this lage there are some videos to show the different optics of diamonds, "Assessment of brightness" and "Assessment of fire": http://www.goodoldgold.com/Diamond_Videos/

 

[stone-cold11]

What are the angles, table size?

 

[soontomarry2]

Dreamer_Dashie:

Again thank you for your reply; you''ve been so very helpful to me in other threads. He did allow me to walk around the store but it didn''t get much lighter probably because the lighting in the store was very similar and there wasn''t any sunlight.

Stone-cold11:

Both were GIA''s version of ideal cut, polish, and symmetry. (I know that GIA''s version of ideal is more inclusive than AGS)

One was:

Crown Angle: 33.5
Pavilion angle: 40.8
Depth: 59.6
Table: 59%
Pavilion Depth: 40.8%
The other I don''t remember the angle but I believe the table was 58.

 

[Dreamer_D]

You are welcome!

 

[stone-cold11]

Numbers look good. Should be the above explanation.

 

[MissGotRocks]

Ditto - that''s exactly what happens!

 

[HVVS]

Most CZs are a D colorless, very white. If it was body tint you saw, that''s the difference between D and G or H.

 

[CLEICS]

Ooh thanks for that Ive been watching my F colour diamond and noticed it really does seem to change character according to where I am from almost a bluey white under spotlights to brilliant white in my dining room (not that I stare at my stone too much lol!!!)