How much is a diamond worth?

Diamonds in the modern world are not just a value, but an excellent way to preserve their fortune for many years and decades. You can invest in anything, but only jewelry will not fall in price over time due to inflation and will not deteriorate, which is why the demand for them is so great. In addition, it is also a good gift, but it is no secret that scammers, taking advantage of the lack of experience of many of their customers, often pass off ordinary glass as 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 a real diamond will be sold to you, only the price will be completely inadequate.

In the modern world, there are no fixed prices at all, and even more so in the world of precious stones.

Firstly, there is a difference between a stone and a stone - one seems to be a real masterpiece, the other looks a little simpler, while still remaining precious. Secondly, it is not in vain that diamonds are so expensive - there are relatively few of them in the world, therefore the influence of the level of supply and demand is very strong.

The dynamics of the global diamond market is weekly evaluated by experts from New York, who publish the so-called Rapaport price list. Specialists 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, therefore, have significantly increased in price, and also assess the dynamics of sales. When there is supply, but there are problems with demand, they recommend lowering prices a little, 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 price of diamonds at a given moment is also influenced by the exchange rate of the national currency in relation to the US dollar. American experts, of course, publish all prices in dollars, especially since their currency is widely used throughout the world. For this reason, settlement for jewelry, at least on the scale of jewelry companies, always takes place in dollars, and not in the equivalent of local currency.

While 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 which category a particular stone should be assigned to.

To understand how much a particular diamond is worth, you need to take into account four criteria at once: weight and cut quality, as well as color and clarity.

With weight, everything is relatively clear - it is measured in carats (1 carat - 0.2 grams).

However, not everything is so simple: the fact is that most gemstones are very small, therefore large sizes are valued especially strongly - 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 stone is worth a four-carat stone, and a three-carat stone is already a nine-carat one. At the same time, the initial weight of over 5 carats makes consumers pay for the mass of the 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 a product is not sold per kilogram - even a gram stone is not only of great value, but also a great rarity.

What else affects the cost is the cut - in the Rapaport price list, the rates are indicated not for the carat of diamonds as a whole, but for carats of a certain cut, the options for which are presented in the report. An uncut diamond itself is rather ordinary-looking, an inexperienced person will not guess what it is, but skillful processing makes it possible to turn it into the greatest jewel.

GIA experts identify five levels of processing, ranging from poor to excellent, and US experts usually specify different rates for each of these categories.... At the same time, in stones weighing up to 1 carat, the difference is practically invisible to the inexperienced eye, 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 by quality, but also by shape. 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 gem must be accompanied by a certificate that describes the shape.

The color of the pebble is also not so simple - sometimes you need special equipment to catch the difference in shades.In addition, not all rough diamonds are suitable for processing to a gem-quality 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 any diamond one of sixteen colors, designated by letters, in the Russian system for diamonds less than 0.3 carats there are only 7 categories, for larger ones - 9. At the same time, in both cases, colorless, completely transparent stones are valued the most.

Cleanliness is a subjective criterion. First of all, a natural mineral cannot be completely without defects - there are third-party inclusions, small crystal irregularities, and so on. The purity index is assessed even before processing in order to understand how much it is possible at all, then a re-assessment of the already processed stone is carried out. In the Russian classification, stones are divided according to the above-described weight criterion - for "kids" there are nine levels of gradation, for large ones, twelve such levels are provided.

At the same time, recognizing the inevitability of defects in natural raw materials, experts in different countries are guided by their different parameters. So, when assessing in the United States, the objective characteristics of the disadvantage are important: dimensions, shape and location. In Russia, an abstract criterion for the appearance of a defect is important, and its origin is also assessed.

All of the above, by the way, still does not allow you to calculate the price perfectly accurately. When purchasing jewelry in a store, you cannot accurately calculate the seller's costs, which take into account the payment for the premises, salaries of employees, the cost of reliable security and your own calculations of supply and demand in a particular city.

Five grams in everyday life seems to be an extremely low weight, but for a diamond of 25 carats it 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 they are well known among professional jewelers and appraisers. Another thing is that 25 carats is far from the weight limit for a diamond, since individual specimens weighed much more. Their value is not measured by any formula, as they are absolutely unique jewelry.

If we talk about the largest diamond in history, then it no longer exists today. In 1905, in South Africa, local miners found a unique stone weighing 3106.75 carats (over 0.6 kg), whose dimensions were 10x6.5x5 cm! The unique stone was named "Cullinan" in honor of the person who owned the mine, but is also widely known under another name - "Star of Africa". Since it would be strange to donate such a treasure to a person below the royal rank, the government of the British colony of Transvaal, where this stone was found, presented it to Edward VII, then King of Britain.

The best jeweler of those times worked on the cut, but he immediately said that it would not be possible to make a solid diamond - there are too many cracks and inclusions in the crystal. He studied the Cullinan for several months, after which he suggested breaking it down into several smaller stones, each of which could be cut and made into jewels. As a result, the largest of the roughly one hundred resulting cut diamonds began to weigh 530 carats (106 grams) and for a very long time was considered the largest of all cut diamonds.

However, even for that kind of money, it will hardly be possible to buy it, because it still belongs to the British crown and is a national relic.

"Cullinan", including all its main large parts, has never been sold, therefore one of the most expensive (at least among the unprocessed) is considered to be the Nash Svet diamond. It was discovered not so long ago, in 2015, at a mine in Botswana. It still remains the second largest, after the very "Cullinan", and has a mass of 1109 carats (almost 222 grams). The impact of supply and demand can be clearly seen in his example, as it was auctioned off for $ 53 million in its raw form (a normal price considering the inevitable weight loss during cutting). At the same time, the Sozvezdie diamond, found by the same company in the same year, weighed “only” 813 carats, but was sold for as much as $ 10 million more.

You can find out more about the cost of diamonds in the video below.