HISTORY OF THE DIAMOND

When you buy a diamond, you buy a little bit of eternity. Diamonds are hard-pressed coal in perfect grids - the essence of the precious, extraordinary and amazing.

Diamonds have most likely been made one to three billion years ago. The process itself has probably taken about a billion years. Coal has crystallized itself as diamonds where heat and pressure conditions have been thermodynamically stable: About 150-200 km below the earth's surface under intense heat (about 900-1,300°C) at 45,000-60,000 atmospheric pressure.

As a gemstone, diamonds have been appreciated by many peoples over the past 4,000 years. Women have loved them, men have gone to war for them, and there is no limit to all the mystery that has been attributed to the precious stones.

Carat is a unit of weight - 1 carat is 0.2 gram (200 mg). The carat comes from the seeds of the carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua), which, when dried, each weigh 0.2 grams. Using the seeds, the unit carat was determined. "Carob" then became "carat" over time. As large diamonds are considerably rarer than small ones, the price usually increases exponentially with the weight of the diamond. However, the value of the diamond also depends on the other three Cs.

Color: The diamond is best known for being colorless, but actually comes in all colors. The colourless ones have historically been the most prized and thus precious. Most diamonds have either a faint yellowish or brownish tinge. Since the 1990s, the very rare, intensely, brightly coloured diamonds have fetched astronomical sums.

Diamonds get their colors either from chemical impurities and/or due to structural defects at the atomspecies level. When the diamonds became deep beneath the earth's surface, there were also other elements present besides coal. The other drugs have either affected the diamond during its growth, or "hooked up" on the diamond.

Black diamonds get their color from the iron oxide minerals hematite and magnetite as well as graphite and iron. Since many black diamonds are filled with impurities, they are extra difficult to grind. The brown cognac colored is caused by pressure on the diamond's crystal grille and a low nitrogen content (nitrogen).

Cut means grinding. To release the inner beauty of diamonds, the stones are cut with facets. Cutting is a more or less systematic arrangement of facets, which together change the original shape and appearance of the stone. Several factors are taken into account when choosing a cut for a specific diamond: the stone's own original shape and size, flaws (blemishes and inclusions, see the fourth C: Clarity), the desire and attempt to retain as much weight (see the first C: Carat) as possible, the aim to produce the cut's perfect proportions and finally the reigning mother - which cuts are most popular at any given time.

For example, grinding can be round, oval, heart, pear or droplet-shaped, elongated and pointed, square or triangular. The round grinding is called a brilliant. Up to 80-90% of all jewellery-quality diamonds are brilliant. Therefore, the brilliance is also the most well-known grinding.

Clarity means the inner purity of the diamond. The purer the diamond, the more it is worth. A diamond's clarity is judged under a magnifying glass or microscope that magnifies ten times. The purer the diamond, the more it is worth. Even diamonds that are not "declared" perfect are actually completely free of inclusions. But if the shadows cannot be seen under ten times magnification, the diamond is said to be of perfect ("F - Flawless") clarity.