What You Should Know About Diamond Weight
Posted by Lee
Would you like to buy a diamond but you don’t have any idea about it? Let us give a few basic ideas to get you started.
Diamonds are measured in carat weight. A carat is unit of measurement specifically to describe the weight of a diamond or other gemstones. Diamond carat weight is one of the “Four Cs” diamond rating criteria, along with color, cut, and clarity, and the first factor that people learn about diamond. One carat is equals to 200 milligrams. You might also hear a diamond being referred to as four grains. This simply means that it is a one carat diamond.
The word "carat" was derived from the word carob. There’s the ancient practice in India where diamonds were first discovered and traded and the carob seed was used to measure the diamond’s weight because its weight was consistent. Thus, it was one carob and later evolved into carat because of the English language.
Also, there’s this deal about the rice grains. In the Far East, Carob trees are not available. So they use rice to measure the weight of the diamond. So instead of one carob seed, four grains of rice is equal to one carat as we know it to be. Most diamond purchases today are 1/3 of a carat.
Now be careful when shopping for diamonds that are already set or mounted. If there are more than one diamonds used in the said jewelry and the tag on the jewelry will give the CTW or Carat Total Weight, it only tells you the total weight of the diamonds, not the individual weight of each. What you need to do is asked the jeweler for the weight of the largest diamond in the piece before buying it.
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