I'm glad that QVC and others are starting to provide diamond quality and color grading information. It's very important that we know what we are buying.
However, I have some concerns: unless the grading is done by a GIA certified expert, then the information might not be exact. Grading is part science, but also subject to human interpretation. Just because someone quotes the GIA grading scale does not mean that their assessment of the diamond is accurate. Even if the intent is to be accurate, the experience, training, and inherent bias of the grader can result in different assessments of the same stone. I've had jewelers who differed with a written diamond evaluation provided by the GIA itself on a GIA certified stone.
Also, many people don't really understand the GIA diamond grading scale. So when a sales person tells them it's a great stone or uses other marketing language, it doesn't mean they are getting the right interpretation of
the GIA specifications as they relate to that stone. A stone with a GIA clarity of I, means the inclusions in the stone can be seen with the naked eye. Those inclusions may or may not interfere with the beauty of the stone (it depends on many factors, including the color of the stone, the size of the stone, the size and location of the inclusions, and how the stone is cut) , but they certainly should effect the price. When I hear sales people say the clarity of stones is I2-I3 amd then go on to say how beautiful the stones are, and how much they sparkle, I know that I cannot believe most of what they are saying. But I worry that there are others who just accept the information as being accurate.
I know that sales people are there to sell. But as buyers we need to be as informed as possible so we can properly understand everything that is being said. In person, we can add our own inspection to the analysis, but on TV we need to distinguish the 'facts' from the opinions.
How the diamond is cut is also a factor in how it looks. In the simplest of terms, the number of facets is important: many round diamonds used these days in jewelry setting are not full cut. A full cut round diamond has at least 57 facets, but so called 'single cut' stones have only 16 facets. These single cut stones are often used in setting with many small diamonds. The brilliance of a single cut stone is much less than that of a full cut stone, all other factors of quality and color being equal. We rarely hear anyone describing if the diamonds are full cut.
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