Diamonds in the modern world are not just value, but a great way to maintain wealth for many years and decades. You can invest money in anything, but only jewelry will not become cheaper over time due to inflation and will not deteriorate, because the demand for them is so great. In addition, this is also a good gift, but it is no secret that fraudsters, taking advantage of the lack of experience of many of their customers, often give ordinary glass for diamonds. That is why, if you want to invest in diamonds, you should clearly understand how much it costs and why, because it is possible that they will sell the real diamond to you, only they will break the price completely inadequate.
What determines the cost?
In the modern world, there are no fixed prices at all, and even more so in the world of precious stones.
Many people know that the price of a diamond depends on its weight, but this is not the only criterion, and it is also not constant.
First, the stone is discord-to-stone - one seems to be a real masterpiece, the other looks a bit simpler, while still remaining precious. Secondly, diamonds are not in vain so expensive - they are relatively few in the world, which is why the influence of the level of supply and demand has a very strong effect.
The dynamics of the global diamond market is weekly evaluated by experts from New York who issue the so-called Rapaport price list. Experts have access to all statistical information: they know how many stones have been mined, take into account how many rough diamonds have been processed and, consequently, have grown significantly in price, and also evaluate the dynamics of sales. When there is supply, but there are problems with demand, they recommend lowering prices slightly, and, conversely, raising them when there is still not enough raw material for everyone.These experts are considered real authorities in their field - they are listened to in all corners of the globe.
The value of diamonds at a particular moment is also affected by the exchange rate of the national currency against the US dollar. American experts, of course, publish all prices in dollars, especially since their currency is widely used around the world. For this reason, payment for jewelry, at least on the scale of jewelry companies, always takes place in dollars, and not in the equivalent of local currency.
Of course, you will buy pebbles for rubles in a jewelry store in Russia, but do not be surprised if prices change almost daily - these are exchange rate fluctuations.
If everything is clear with the recommendations of American experts, the situation with the assessment of each individual stone is somewhat more complicated. Even experts from different countries do not always agree on what category this or that stone belongs to.
It is generally accepted that the assessment from the GIA, the Gemological Institute of America, is a reference and is not subject to revision, but not all diamonds pass through it.
How to calculate?
To understand how much a particular diamond is worth, four criteria must be taken into account: the weight and quality of the cut, as well as color and clarity.
With weight, everything is relatively clear - it is measured in carats (1 carat - 0.2 grams).
In Rapaport’s latest price list, you will find the prescribed cost of one carat in dollars, and it would seem that you only need to multiply the number of carats by the cost of a unit of weight, and then translate the resulting amount into rubles at the current rate.
However, not everything is so simple: the fact is that most gemstones are very small, therefore large sizes are especially appreciated - with a weight of 1-5 carats, the weight is first squared, and only then the resulting "mass" is multiplied in the manner described above. Because of this, it turns out that a two-carat pebble stands as a four-carat, and a three-carat - already as a nine-carat. At the same time, the initial weight of more than 5 carats forces consumers to pay for the mass of stone not even in a square, but in a cube.
If we discard all other factors, including periodic fluctuations in value, it turns out that just one carat of a good diamond can cost from 600 thousand to 1.5 million rubles. Naturally, such goods are not sold per kilogram - even a gram stone is not only of great value, but also of great rarity.
What else affects the cost is the cut - in the Rapaport price list, the tariffs are indicated not for carats of diamonds in general, but for carats of a certain cut, many of which are presented in the report. A rough diamond in itself is rather unprepossessing, an inexperienced person does not even guess what it is, but skillful processing allows you to turn it into the greatest jewel.
Three main groups of cuts are distinguished: A (the best), B and C, while any uncut stone can fall into each of them - it all depends on the skill of the jeweler.
GIA specialists identify five levels of processing - from poor to excellent, and American experts usually indicate different rates for each of these categories.. Moreover, in stones weighing up to 1 carat, the difference for an inexperienced eye is practically invisible, and is really noticeable only with a larger weight and size. In general, this factor provides a third of the cost of the finished product.
At the same time, the cut is evaluated not only in quality, but also in form. Round diamonds are most in demand, in the case of an unusual shape, the price for each standard is set separately - all this is in the same price list. A fully certified gemstone must be accompanied by a certificate that describes the form.
According to the standard, large diamonds should have 57 faces, for small ones their number is reduced to 17.
The color of a pebble is also not so simple - sometimes special equipment is needed to capture the difference in shades.In addition, not all rough diamonds are suitable for processing to jewelry appearance. They come in almost any shade - from very light to almost black, but only colorless or very light yellow, gray or brown are suitable. Americans assign one of the sixteen colors denoted by letters to any diamond, in the Russian system for diamonds less than 0.3 carats, only 7 categories are provided, for larger ones - 9. Moreover, in both cases, colorless, completely transparent stones are most valued.
Cleanliness is a subjective criterion at all. First of all, a natural mineral cannot be completely without defects - there are third-party inclusions, small irregularities in the crystal, and so on. The purity index is evaluated even before processing, in order to understand how possible it is at all, then a re-evaluation of the already processed stone is carried out. In the Russian classification, stones are divided according to the above-described weight characteristic - nine levels of gradation are allocated for “babies”, twelve such levels are provided for large ones.
GIA Americans generally distinguish eleven groups.
At the same time, recognizing the inevitability of defects in natural raw materials, specialists in different countries are guided by their different parameters. So, when assessing in the USA, the objective characteristics of the deficiency are important: dimensions, shape and location. In Russia, the abstract criterion for the appearance of a defect is important, and its origin is also evaluated.
All of the above, by the way, still does not allow you to calculate the price perfectly accurately. When buying jewelry in a store, you cannot accurately calculate the costs of the seller, which take into account payment for the premises, salaries of employees, the costs of reliable protection and your own calculations of supply and demand in a particular city.
Practice shows that the closer the seller is to the final consumer, the more expensive the carat is, therefore, in your calculations, be sure to lay a significant margin - unfortunately, you can not do without it.
The price of the world's largest diamond
Five grams in everyday life seems to be extremely light weight, but for a diamond 25 carats is a huge weight, and the vast majority of such stones do not reach this weight, and with a huge lag. Because of this, stones heavier than 25 carats are often given individual names, and among professional jewelers and appraisers, they are well known. Another thing is that 25 carats is far from the mass limit for diamond, since individual specimens weighed much more. Their value is not measured by any formula, since these are absolutely unique jewels.
The price is determined by how much money the most generous buyer is ready to offer.
If we talk about the largest diamond in history, then today it no longer exists. In 1905, in South Africa, local miners found a unique stone weighing 3,106.75 carats (more than 0.6 kg), whose dimensions were 10x6.5x5 cm! The unique stone was named "Cullinan" in honor of the man who owned the mine, but is also widely known under another name - "Star of Africa." Since it would be strange to give such a treasure to a person below the royal rank, the government of the British colony Transvaal, where this pebble was found, presented it to Edward VII, the then king of Britain.
The best jeweler of those times worked on the cut, but he immediately said that it would not work to make a whole diamond - there are too many cracks and inclusions in the crystal. He studied Cullinan for several months, after which he suggested breaking it into several smaller stones, each of which could be cut and made into jewels. As a result, the largest of about one hundred resulting fragments in faceted form began to weigh 530 carats (106 grams) and for a very long time was considered the largest of all faceted diamonds.
Today there are larger faceted diamonds, but they, unlike the Cullinan, are not colorless and transparent, because it is this specimen that is often called the most expensive - its estimated cost is an astounding two billion dollars.
However, even for the kind of money it is unlikely to be bought, because it still belongs to the British crown and is a national relic.
Contrary to popular belief, unprocessed stones are also not so small, although they are cheaper than processed.
“Cullinan”, including all its major major parts, has never been sold, therefore, “Our Light” diamond is considered one of the most expensive (at least among the unprocessed ones). We discovered it not so long ago, in 2015, at a mine in Botswana. It still remains the second largest, after that "Cullinan", and has a mass of 1109 carats (almost 222 grams). Using his example, you can clearly see the effect of supply and demand, since in raw form he left the auction for $ 53 million (the normal price, given the inevitable weight loss during cutting). At the same time, the Constellation diamond, found by the same company in the same year, weighed “only” 813 carats, but it was sold for as much as 10 million dollars more.
You can learn more about the cost of diamonds in the video below.
