Quick and Easy Buying Guide
Carat weight: 1 carat = 200 milligrams = 6.5 mm diameter. Doubling weight doesn't double diameter.
Diamond clarity: FL/IF/VVS/VS = super expensive, near perfect. SI = best value if you can check a photo for obvious inclusions (defects).
Color: D-G = colorless, expensive, only if you have money to burn. H-J = best value. Can go lower in gold metal settings than white metal.
Cut: Better cut ratings let more light into a diamond, making it sparkle more. Very important property, don't skimp here.
Set a budget and minimum cut (Premium). Go J color for gold and I/H for white metals. Go searching for SI1/SI2 clarity diamonds at James Allen. Pick a diamond with small/no inclusions. Choose a ring setting and buy it risk-free (60-day returns).
1.20 Carat Diamonds
If you're interested in the normal metric weight of a 1.20 carat diamond, it is 240 mg. A way of using numbers to help you compare diamonds is to calculate the cost per carat of diamond.
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Be careful of assigning too much importance to the carat weight of the diamond while neglecting other properties such as the girdle thickness, which is to wide can make the diamond appear smaller than other diamonds of the same carat weight. The width of the diamond grows much more slowly than the carat weight of a diamond.
How much of a change do you think you can detect with the naked eye by going from a 2.00 carat stone to a 1.98 carat stone? I can't, which is why i would recommend checking out the slightly smaller stones due to them often being priced a lot lower than the others, for no really good reason. Many people buying a diamond engagement ring for the first time often go overboard with the size of the diamond, not realising how big the diamond will appear when you put it on a small woman's hand.
A shop assistant may show you a one carat diamond and a one carat emerald stone next to each other, and point out how much larger the emerald stone is. This is because emerald is a much lighter material, so for a given weight of it, it will appear much bigger than for an equivalent sized diamond.
Looking around the internet at online diamond stores, you may be tempted to think that a four or five carat diamond is large. You couldn't be more wrong - the golden jubilee diamond is an example of how big diamonds can really be - it is 545 carats, or a weight of more than 100 g, which is about a quarter of the weight of a can of coke. In terms of diamond properties, the carat weight of the diamond should be considered alongside the many other characteristics of the diamond, in order to find a diamond which is balanced and hence not let down by being of poor quality in one of these departments.