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).
1.97 Carat Diamonds
1.97 carats worth of diamond gives you a stone that weighs precisely 394 mg. What many people don't realise is that a 8.21 mm wide diamond can be a range of weights, not just exactly 5 carats, because the diamond can vary in depth.
Sponsored Links
In evaluating the value of a 1.97 carat diamond, one thing you can do is work out the precise cost per carat of diamond.
Girdle thickness is a diamond property which many people never even think about, but which can critically affect how big the diamond appears to be.
Diamond size means both the carat weight of the diamond and the width of the diamond, and the width of the diamond increases at a much slower rate compared to the carat weight of the diamond.
I prefer liberty to chains of diamonds. Mary Montagu .
There's a lot of hearsay on the internet about the average size of a diamond used in a typical diamond engagement ring - it's around half carat - but that of course doesn't give you any information about the typical clarity or colour of the diamond, and that in itself should tell you how useless that statistic is in isolation. It can be humbling to compare the 1.97 carat weight with famous diamonds such as the akbar shah diamond, which came in at a final cut carat weight of 72 carats.
Don't forget to think about other diamond characteristics such as diamond cut, which plays a critical role in determining the amount of light that gets into the diamond and the degree to which the diamond sparkles in light.