STUNNING! This stone is full of life. And I love pear shape.   

Little OT: David, what camera do you use? Beautiful photos.

Thank you, D. Lovely. 

Soooooooooooooooo, do you have any MORE Big K's hanging about?

Kind of like Go Fish, isn't it? You know how the saying goes... no stone left unturned...

Hmmmm...we might have a 4ct K or L cushion.......
tomorrow ( ok it arrived too late for us to take it in today- but we will in the morning)

 

   

Hey!  You couldn't have just dropped it off with me for a visit?  Sheesh!!

I suppose a close approximation would be "pure transparency".

I never appreciated crystal properly before Trinkette brought it to my attention. Now I think it's my most prized diamond feature.

What have you done?!

Jen

Really, over the years diamond marketing has done a marvelous job of selling, but, also, it has done more to confuse than to educate consumers. I can see how the term "clarity" is confused with "transparency." It makes it especially difficult to understand  when gem labs concern themselves with one characteristic (clarity) and not another (transparency). Unfortunately, this is one of those things that until you see a great limpid diamond, it is fairly difficult to wrap your brain around. However, once you see a great, crystalline diamond, you will never forget "the look."

Clarity has to do with [different types of] inclusions in the stone's interior, and/or blemishes on the exterior. Crystal/transparency/limpidity/water has to do with the very nature and characteristics of a stone's actual crystal structure. You can definitely have a well-cut, relatively flawless diamond with crummy crystal. And, it won't ever be noted on paper.

Remember, gems are created by Mother Nature and she has several recipes for diamond. As much as diamonds may vary in color, they might vary in quality of crystal as well.

SV, have your hubby think about the glassware example. Better yet, if you have crystal and everyday glassware, put them side by side. There should be a noticeable difference as one looks through the two glasses; even though the daily glass is not "scratched" or blemished, things will not be as clear, crisp, sharp, or crystalline, as the fine crystal. By contrast, if you imagine a "blemish" on the fine crystal – perhaps a scratch or chip – it may be noticeable, however, it will not necessarily impact the beautiful crystalline appearance of the rest of the glass. I mean, one CAN tell the difference between a fine crystal goblet and a jelly jar, right? 

Sorry, I ramble on... 

Since Trinkette believes has rambled on enough, let me ramble on a little further. To avoid adding to the confusion, in the following I will use Crystal to mean transparency and crystal to mean a physical object arranged in a crystalline (regular) structure.

The concept of "clarity" is actually a bit unclear itself.

Gems have historically been graded on the visibility of inclusions with the naked eye, and gems other than diamonds still are. It has only been relatively recently (not least because of the development of affordable good quality optics - and clever marketing techniques) that diamonds have been graded under 10x magnification as a standard.

The issue with 10x magnification is that apart from being a nice round number (in decimal notation at least), it's totally random. A diamond that appears flawless at 10x will almost certainly show inclusions at 20x or 50x. So it's not really "flawless" at all. In fact, every time you see the note "pinpoint" or "cloud" on a grading report, this indicates one or many inclusions that are so fine that they cannot be identified (crystals? cavities? feathers?) at 10x. Greater magnification resolves the structure and allows identification of the inclusion(s). For example, GIA guidelines establish (if I'm not wrong) that VVS1 can only be awarded to a diamond that contains no more than 2 characteristics, when these are pinpoints or needles. So a diamond containing a crystal - any crystal - cannot be VVS1. However, the needle or pinpoint at 50x may well turn out to be a real crystal of calcite!

Then to this we add the issue of lattice regularity. Most pink and red (and some brown and orange) diamonds owe their colour to the distortion of the atomic lattice in the crystal - this is fundamentally a change in transparency to certain wavelengths (colours) of light. Other types of distortions can generate other changes in light coming through - for example, the light may end up being scattered, absorbed or deviated through the visible spectrum. All of which is not a good recipe for looking transparent and having great Crystal.

In other words, all diamonds are NOT created equally!

Which thread is it where we were talking about gem treatments? Although it is kind of a tangent to the discussion here, artificially distorting crystal structures and patterns in order to alter gem color is all related to what OMC is touching on in his last paragraph...

Cool stuff.

Confusion has not been avoided. Do you mean "Clarity" where I made it red?

Ooooooooh I get it now!