Color

Lack of color is desirable in a diamond. Not to be confused with fancy color diamonds that are every color of the rainbow. In the 50's Richard Liddicoat, of the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) developed the "Color, Cut, and Clarity" system to teach a unified grading system. The science of diamond grading was created by him.

In the jewelry industry at that time, there was no grading standard. Many jewelers referred to their diamonds as A, AA, AAA, all the way up to AAAAAA. The system was whatever the jeweler wanted to call his diamond.

One day when I was talking to Mr. Liddicoat, he said he started with the whitest diamond he could find, and called it "D" in color. He did this because he did not want his system to be confused with the A through AAAAAA system jewelers were using. He also knew that even though his system was for teaching at the GIA, someday it would be widely used in jewelry stores.

The higher the color letter, the more body color a stone has.

D, E, F are colorless (F has very slight bit of color compared to D)

G, H, I are near colorless ( I has a slight bit of color compared to G)

J, K, L have slight color to the eye

M through Z have color to the eye ( not very desirable color)

After Z the amount color in the stone starts to make the stone a Fancy Color Diamond

Find a custom jeweler in Springfield, or internet jeweler.