DIAMONDS
When choosing a diamond, you need to take the Four C's into consideration.

COLOR
Diamonds are given a color grade, with the best grade being colorless. The scale goes all the way through Z, with D through F considered colorless. Please refer to the color chart shown below.

CLARITY
The clarity of a stone is determined by how many inclusions, or flaws, are present. The grading scale begins with “IF”, which means the stone is internally flawless, and goes all the way to “I”, which means the stone is included or has flaws visible to the naked eye. There are different degrees within each clarity grade, an example of two grades you might see are SI1 and SI2. SI stands for slightly included and the 1 or the 2 means to what degree the stone is included.

CARAT WEIGHT
Weight is measured in carats, 1 carat means that there are 100 points to the stone, if a stone is exactly half a carat, there are 50 points to the stone.

CUT
How well a diamond is cut will determine how much light is reflected through the stone to allow for maximum brilliance. A poorly cut stone might be cut too deep or too shallow. You might hear the term IDEAL cut or a ZERO cut, which means that the stone is out as perfectly as possible to allow for maximum brilliance.

The better the color and clarity of a diamond, the more rare and valuable it becomes.

GOLD
When choosing the karat jewelry you wish to purchase, take into consideration what you are paying for.
24kt is pure gold.
18kt is at least 75% gold.
14kt is at least 58.3% gold.
10kt, which is the minimum to be called gold in America, is 41.7% gold.

Gold is available in more than just one color. Other popular colors are rose, and white. Because gold’s natural color is yellow, to make it rose they usually add copper to the mix and to make it white they usually add nickel.

PLATINUM
Platinum is considered a pure metal, because it is at least 95% pure platinum and only 5% other alloys.

GOLD VS. PLATINUM
- Gold is less expensive. Platinum lasts longer. Platinum dulls quickly. When gold gets scratched it loses some metal, when platinum scratches no metal is lost. The metal just gets pushed to the side and is moved back into place when a jeweler polishes it.

SILVER
Sterling Silver is at least 92.5 percent pure silver. Silver is a softer metal than gold and platinum but is also less expensive. Silver is also known to tarnish but can easily be cleaned.