The things that people search for… “Do diamonds shrink over time?” actually showed up in the Google Analytic’s keyword search tool this morning as a search term that somebody used to find this web site. Not surprisingly, they ended up reading the article which I wrote titled Diamond Shrinkage Syndrome: A Global Pandemic.
Of course, I had to laugh because I had a lot of fun writing that little gem of a parody. But to answer the question that this particular person was trying to solve, diamonds absolutely do shrink over time! Trust me, I’m a diamond dealer.
Seriously… it’s true! Diamonds do shrink over time… Take this 2.343 carat, G-color, VS-1 clarity, round brilliant ideal cut diamond from the Brian Gavin Blue collection which measures 8.56 – 8.59 x 5.26 mm, right now it has an average outside diameter of 8.575 millimeters, so it’s going to look freaking huge the day you drop down on one knee and present it to your bride!
But after about a week, perhaps two if you’re lucky, all right, seriously you might get a year out of it… and then it’s going to start looking like this 1.027 carat, G-color, SI-1 clarity, puppy from the Brian Gavin Signature Collection of Hearts & Arrows Diamonds, which happens to have the same average outside diameter as the eraser on a standard #2 pencil (6.50 mm).
So you should probably save yourself all of the stress and heartache and pick up this 4.610 carat, G-color, VS-1 clarity, Signature Hearts and Arrows Diamond from Brian Gavin because it starts out measuring 10.78 – 10.85 x 6.52 mm, which gives it an outside diameter of about 10.81 millimeters.
So, the odds are that when one of her girlfriends gets engaged in a week or two, it’s not going to look “so small” compared to hers, which brings me to this point… you do realize that to win this game, the diamond you purchase, needs to be just a little bit larger than the last diamond presented to one of her girlfriends!
I know this concept to be true, because one of my clients just explained it to me over lunch… he said “it needs to be at least four carats, because her best friend has a diamond in her engagement ring that weighs just under four carats!”
Needless to say he’s going to be coughing up some serious change, and it’s a battle which can’t be won, but that doesn’t matter… this diamond just needs to be the largest diamond presented to the group thus far, it’s up to the next poor sap to break the group record and call Guinness.
Needless to say, I find this whole obsession with size to be ridiculous… my focus is on diamond cut quality, all I really care about is the light return and sparkle factor of the diamond… I’d rather see somebody purchase a gorgeous half carat diamond, like this 0.534 carat, G-color, VS-2 clarity, Hearts and Arrows diamond from Brian Gavin, or this 0.802 carat, G-color, VS-2 clarity, Signature Hearts & Arrows Diamond from Brian Gavin, than something big and ugly which was purchased just because they were trying to hit a particular carat weight mark.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been chatting with somebody at a cocktail party, looking at some huge rock that is sitting on her hand, cut so poorly that it isn’t reflecting any light, and another diamond catches my eye from across the room, because it is cut better… I think that this is what sisters, Ann and Jane Taylor, had in mind when they wrote “The Star” back in 1806:
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Then the traveler in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.