Diamonds

Rawson Brother offer only natural diamonds mined from the earth, cut by skilled craftsmen, selected by qualified Goldsmiths or Diamond Graders and presented to you in an open and honest environment.

We know that buying a diamond for a loved one is a scary and often difficult decision, we are here to help make the process easier, we have supplied quite a bit of information on the page as we personally like to be well informed when buying.

Cut

A Diamonds Cut is essential to display the natural sparkle and fire of a good quality diamond. Cut isn’t the shape that the stone is cut into but how well the finished stone is proportioned to reflect the most light within the stone picking up the fire and displaying it back to the viewer. 

A diamonds Cut is the most important of the 4 C’s to consider, a poorly cut diamond lacks sparkle and life and has no place being worn by a loved one.

At Rawson brothers we only ever use EXCELLENT or VERY GOOD cut diamonds. These stones are more expensive as they are rarer than poorly cut stones, and have a much higher demand.

Cut is the hardest of the 4 C’s to grade, the Gemological instate of America lists dozens of measurements against which a diamond must fit into to be Graded as a Excellent or Very good. Essentially it comes down to two parts Design and Craftsmanship. Design is determined during the fashioning stage. It’s a diamond’s physical shape, including its proportions and durability. Craftsmanship is the care that goes into the diamond’s finishing details. Including these factors gives a well-crafted diamond the recognition it deserves and properly identifies why it more beautiful than other diamonds.

Colour

When it comes to colourless diamonds less is best (Except Fancy Colours) Most diamonds display a light tinge of Yellow or Brown. The diamond colour range starts at D and goes all the way down to Z. The less colour a diamond has the more rare it is so a Colour D diamond is far rarer and commands a higher price than a Colour H Diamond.

Normal High street retailers will use Diamonds in the H-J range in white gold and J-k in Yellow Gold as the stones colour will be less noticeable. Most online stones available are J or bellow.

At Rawson Brothers we use Diamonds between E-G described as colourless, this colour range along with an excellent cut make our stones look much brighter and more lively when compared any other stone sold on the High Street. Even if the item you choose has small side diamonds they still fit into this range. We don't put a lower quality stones into yellow gold settings they are all of a good colour

Clarity

Diamonds usually have inclusions, little characteristics that affect the clarity grade. Basically these are carbon spots, tiny crystals or natural characteristics of a stone when it was formed under tremendous pressure and heat within the earth. It is not necessarily bad to have inclusions in a diamond, they are natural and make your diamond unique like a fingerprint they can even tell your stone is a natural diamond (We only sell natural diamonds)

Basically the less internal inclusions in a diamond the rarer the stone is. It’s difficult to say what  a good diamond or what a good clarity grade is, effectively from the Grade Si2 (Slightly Included) and below the naked eye can’t see inclusions, but what about a larger stone has a large inclusion to one side? This inclusion can be hidden under a claw or can only be seen from below so it won’t affect the look of the stone. This is where it gets tricky so we chose a stone firstly based on Cut then Colour and we look for a good looking stone with minimal inclusions that don’t affect the overall look of the stone.

Clarity is measured with a 10X loupe under controlled conditions. A lower grade can look good depending on where the inclusions are and how many there are and what colour they are. However there are stones that do have too many inclusions or the wrong sort of inclusions these stop even looking like diamonds, this is the area you need an expert to choose to get the best value.

Carat Weight

A Carat refers to the standard measurement of weight for a diamond. A Carat is 0.2g grams. Diamonds are very light compared to other stones due to a very low density of Carbon, a diamond is made entirely of Carbon.

Diamonds come in all shapes and sizes, but they are all weighed in Carats or parts of carats. Larger diamonds are more scarce and desired so the prices for larger diamonds is a lot higher than smaller stones for example a 4X 0.25ct (four quarter carat) together would weigh 1ct but a single stone that weighs 1ct would be far more expensive.

We recommend looking for a stone of better quality rather than a larger stone. Naturally stones that fit nicely onto a sales sign are things like 1ct or 0.5ct or 1.5carats because that's what customers want that's what retailers want, so if that's what retailers want that's what diamond cutters aim for. these are what are called Magic Numbers, so few people want to buy a 0.99ct diamond so close to being a 1 carat stone. These are called "light Carats" and they can prove to be a real bargain, naturally we only ever tell the truth when it comes to diamond weight, but the difference in weight cannot be noticed by anyone including a diamond grader once the stone is in a ring, so may be worth considering.