Looking At Diamond Material

When I meet with new clients, I go through my Diamond 101 speech, which includes telling them what type of material comprises the diamond.  Not all diamonds are made of the exact same stuff, and I am the biggest diamond nerd who seems to know more than other diamond dealers when it comes to this area.

I compare diamonds to a cake.  So all white cakes are the same right?  Wrong!!  One white cake looks like every other, but all white cakes don’t taste the same. The ingredients and the method of cooking make the difference.

All white diamonds look the same until you examine them under a loop or microscope. In the detailed close-up, you can tell the difference.  For instance, diamonds from Zimbabwe have a little thickness in the crystal that doesn’t appear in diamonds from other countries.

When looking at diamonds, most people, including diamond dealers, have no clue what they are looking at nor what signals to look for. For instance, Type IIa diamonds are very rare crystals. Unlike other diamonds, there is little to no hydrogen in the crystal make up.  But going one step further, there is the ULTIMATE RARE diamond crystal, known as a Golconda.  These extra rare diamonds are like the Type IIa diamonds, but for some reason they have a look that NO OTHER diamond crystal has in the world. These diamonds came out of the Golconda region in India. The Hope diamond is a Golconda.  Golcondas are extremely rare and as clear as water.

Don’t get confused when a diamond dealer says a diamond is a Type IIa/Golconda diamond.  Golcondas are very few and far between, and nine times out of ten that dealer is incorrect. Not his fault. He just doesn’t know the difference.

So I hope to eliminate confusion about diamond material.  Not all diamonds are the same.  Far from it.  And you should learn the difference.

Diamonds Type IIa and Golconda Diamonds

I get excited about this subject — Golconda and/or Type IIa diamonds. Most people and diamond dealers think that diamonds are diamonds, and that they are all the same. So not true! There is a diamond region in India called Golconda. The Golconda region was at the time the only source of diamonds from the 4th century BC until 1700 AD. The white diamonds that came from that region were some of the most beautiful diamonds in history. The diamonds are described as watery, limpid, whiter than white, Ice white. I could go on and on. Natural Color diamonds also came from that region. When you look into a Golconda diamond either white (or colorless ), pink, or blue, the look is like no other diamond. Ice clear. Stunning! You can see what I mean in the images above. Nowadays, Type IIa diamonds come from many other parts of the world and are rare. Just know that the diamond crystal from the Golconda region is chemically different from any other Type iia diamond crystal. This makes their stone extremely rare! Who doesn’t LOVE a Golconda Type IIa diamond?