American Gem Society (AGS) Laboratories

Many gemological laboratories provide certificates which prove the authenticity of a diamond and specify its minute facts and characteristics. One such laboratory is the American Gem Society Laboratories (AGSL). This laboratory provides diamond grading services to jewelry industry only, which means that they accept diamonds only from jewelers and manufacturers.

AGSL is known for grading the diamond cut including the Ideal Cut. It is also known for grading the fancy cut diamonds like Emerald, Oval and Princess cut. According to this laboratory, the most important among the four Cs of a diamond is the Cut, because this feature determines the amount of refraction or reflection of light.

The AGS Laboratories offer various reports depending on the type of diamond information required. The most preferred among them is the Diamond Quality Document (DQD) which includes the complete analysis of the four Cs of the diamond: Color Grade, Cut Grade, Carat weight and Clarity grade.

Image Source: http://www.agslab.com/product_diamond_quality_document.php

AGS Diamond Grading System

Grading is allotted in numerical form from the range of zero to ten. For Diamond Cut, zero means the best cut (Ideal cut) and ten indicates the lowest one. In the Verbal form, cut can be classified as AGS Ideal or Excellent or from Very Good, Good to Fair or Poor. The same numerical form goes for the Clarity feature of a diamond. The verbal descriptor for indicating the clarity of the diamond is same as that of GIA (Gemological Institute of America). For Diamond Color, zero indicates colorless and ten indicates light yellow or light brown.

AGSL provides easy-to-read grading scale hence making it easy for the consumers to evaluate and verify the quality of the diamond they have purchased.

Heart Diamonds – The Fancy Cut Diamond

Heart diamonds are the ultimate gift for Valentine’s Day. A Sparkling heart shaped diamond helps you to express your love for your special someone with grace, elegance and romance.

Although they are hard to find, because of their increasing popularity, retailers and manufacturers are giving them more importance and trying to bring them in large numbers.

This fancy-cut diamond reveals the bow-tie shadow effect although high quality stones exhibit this effect minimally. They typically contain 59 facets.

When fixed in prong setting they look more marvelous than in any other jewelry setting, since the beauty of the shape gets noticed easily with this setting. Usually five prongs would be required to hold the stone. Two prongs will hold the lobes, another two to hold the sides and a V-shaped prong holding its pointed tip.

They are moreover popular with solitaire rings and solitaire pendants. They also look stunning in stud earrings and as diamond ring side stones too. Check out some of the different types of jewelry adorned with a heart shaped diamond:



Solitaire Ring:

Image Source: http://ringoblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/heart-solitaire-ring.jpg


Solitaire Pendant:

Image Source: http://www.overstockjeweler.com/images/I/overstockjeweler_1943_52309453.gif

Side stone Ring:

Image Source: http://www.ritani.com/productimages/1237819700_1RZ1235AAHP.jpg


Stud Earring:

Image Source: http://www.rothemcollection.com/pc/catalog/heart_diamond_earrings_w2_870_general.jpg

Identifying the right heart-shaped diamond:

The brilliance of these diamonds differs on their depth. Deeper the diamond, the more brilliance it has. Diamond with more depth although sparkles with brilliance, but may look smaller than its ideal size. Flatter diamonds have lesser brilliance and radiance. Hence heart shaped diamonds should be chosen carefully.
Also, while purchasing heart shaped diamonds, one must be sure that the top lobes of the stone are even.
The two halves should be well-defined and should look symmetrical at least for a naked eye.
The color of the diamond should be given special attention while choosing such diamonds. If it has low-quality color, then it may be noticeable from the corners of the cut.

Ideal Cut Diamonds

The “Cut” plays a significant role in the four Cs of a diamond. It not only defines the basic facet arrangement but also affects its brilliance. The cut of a diamond can be classified based on how the light reflects from the stone and hence creating particular amount of brilliance from the diamond.

The different types of diamonds are:
Shallow Cut
Ideal Cut
Deep Cut

Among them, Ideal cut diamonds are mostly preferred since light reflects from the top of the stone hence creating maximum brilliance among all the types. Also, irrespective of the direction from where the light has entered into the stone, all the light gets reflected increasing the diamond’s brilliancy and radiating exquisite light. In shallow cut ones, the light refracts away from the bottom hence resulting the diamond to loose its brilliance and making the stone appear glassy and opaque whereas in deep cut diamonds refraction of light takes place from the sides making it dull and lifeless.

This categorization depends on the proportion in which the diamonds are cut. An Ideal Cut Diamond has the proportion as shown below:

These measurements differ for different gemological laboratories.

Different grading laboratories have assigned different names to the diamonds with Ideal cut like Superb Ideal Cut, American Ideal Cut and even Excellent Cut. GIA (Gemological Institute of America) refers to it as Excellent Cut diamonds.

Since producing such diamonds requires exact and precise measures, they usually cost more than other diamond cuts.