COLOR IN DIAMOND: WHEN LEAST IS BEST
It's ironic that the very best color for a brilliant diamond is no color at all. The reason is simple: absence of color means no conflict to dim the beauty of the natural light entering the stone and breaking into its spectral elements -the brilliant reds and blues and violets. The most common measure of diamond color comes from the Gemological Institute of America. The purest, colorless stone carries a D rating and this scale goes right through the alphabet to Z -designating a diamond with a strong brown cast.(The scale starts with D because at the time the system was created in the early 1950s the business was plagued with hucksters offering AA and AAA diamonds - and GIA wanted to distance itself from this hype). Gradations on the color scale are so precise and so minute that it's almost impossible for an untrained eye to see them. You have to go fairly far down the scale, perhaps to an I or a J, before an amateur starts to pick up a yellowish tint. Color, like the other three C's of cut, clarity and carat weight, has a big impact on price. A D diamond costs much more than a G which is equal in every other as- pect.