Jewelry & Watches Frequently Asked Questions or FAQ
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About Diamonds
About Watches & Timepieces
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About Diamonds
A diamond is a mineral composed essentially of carbon crystallized at extremely high temperatures and pressures; in nature, diamonds form 150 to 200 kilometers (93 to 124 miles) or more below the earth's surface. Diamond is the hardest of all known natural substances (10 on the Mohs Hardness Scale). Its is 2.417, dispersion 0.044, specific gravity 3.52, and its luster is adamantine. Diamond forms in the cubic, or isometric, crystal system, has four directions of perfect octahedral cleavage, and shows a step-like fracture surface. Its color ranges from colorless to yellow, brown, gray, orange, green, blue, white, black, purple, pink and (extremely rarely) red.
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Diamonds were first discovered in alluvial deposits in southern India about the 9th century BCE, and for centuries India remained the world's primary source of diamonds. This changed in the 18th century with the discovery of large diamond deposits in Brazil in 1725. Over a century later diamonds were discovered in South Africa, and so began the leadership of South Africa in the diamond trade.
Today diamond mines are found throughout the world. The current leading nations in diamond production are still found in Africa, but other nations are beginning to produce diamonds in the volume in which African nations have been operating for the past century and a half. Three of the world's leading diamond producing countries are in Africa: Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. The non-African leaders in diamond production include Canada, Brazil, Venezuela, Russia, and Australia.
Canadian diamonds gained a strong foothold in the diamond trade when the politics met up with geology. As large diamond deposits were found in the Canadian Northwest Territories in the 1990s it was concurrently discovered that the nations of Sierre Leone, Angola and The Republic of Congo were using their diamond sales to fund civil war. The branding of such diamonds as "conflict diamonds" gave the new Canadian mines the ethical upper-hand, and so helped to bring Canadian diamonds to the forefront of diamond production. The Canadian diamond mining industry has strict regulations in place, documenting all of the diamonds produced from their mines. In this way these diamonds are assured of being Canadian diamonds, including having a polar bear mark inscribed on the diamonds in order to brand them.
South America is also still producing diamonds in large quantities, almost 300 years since they were first discovered there by western interests. Brazil and Venezuela are the two major diamond producing nations in this area. Newly available technology has allowed more diamond deposits to be mapped, giving this area the ability to remain strong in diamond production.
The world leader of diamond production is still South Africa. For the past century and a half, South Africa has been the world leader in producing and transporting diamonds. It is through South Africa's mass production, distribution and shrewd business decisions that they remain the world's diamond leader. It is in South Africa that the diamond industry's leader, DeBeers is located. Through their ownership of the primary and largest diamond mines in the world, DeBeers is able to control much of the diamond industry. However, diamond deposits in Russia's Siberia region and the newly discovered deposits in Australia's Northern and Western Territories are closing the historic diamond production gap.
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Diamonds are formed under tremendous heat and pressure. These conditions exist about 150 km to 200 km (or about 93 mi. to 124 mi.) beneath the earth's surface, where the temperatures are extremely high ranging from 900° C to 1300° C (or 1652° F to 2372° F). For millions of years, carbon atoms deep in the earth's upper mantle have been exposed to these extreme conditions. As a result, these atoms combine their cubic molecular form and ultimately form diamond crystals. During volcanic eruptions, diamond crystals eventually make their way to the earth's surface through pipes and channels. These pipes or channels contain the magma from the volcano, which rises along with the diamonds and deposits them on the surface where they are later found and mined. These are known as the primary deposits of diamond. Kimberlite is a blue rock and the most common host of diamonds found in the earliest volcanic pipes.
Kimberlite is named after Kimberley, South Africa, where these pipes were first found. Most of these eruptions occurred between 1,100 million and 20 million_ years ago. Kimberlite pipes are created as magma flows through deep fractures in the Earth. The magma inside the kimberlite pipes acts like an elevator, pushing the diamonds and other rocks and minerals through the mantle and crust in just a few hours. These eruptions were short, but many times more powerful than volcanic eruptions that happen today. The magma in these eruptions originated at depths three times deeper than the magma source for volcanoes like Mount St. Helens, according to the American Museum of Natural History. The magma eventually cooled inside these kimberlite pipes, leaving behind conical veins of kimberlite rock that contain diamonds. Kimberlite is a bluish rock that diamond miners look for when seeking out new diamond deposits. The surface area of diamond-bearing kimberlite pipes ranges from 2 to 146 hectares (5 to 361 acres).
Some diamonds get washed away either by erosion or by nearby water bodies, and are thus found near river beds. They are known as alluvial deposits. Millions of years of erosion spread diamonds into streams, rivers and the seas. Many centuries ago, diamonds were first recognized and mined in India along the rivers Penner, Krishna and Godavari. Natural diamond sources have been discovered in 35 countries all across the world. Russia, Botswana and South Africa are the major gem quality diamond producers in the world. Australia is the one of the world's biggest industrial diamond producer.
Dazzling diamonds have always fascinated women and are considered to be their best friend. They are the best way to express your love for someone special. So, the next time when you venture into a jewelry store and admire an incredible diamond ring, just think about the time, energy and resources that have gone into its making and you'll surely have a better appreciation for it.
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A diamond is evaluated, measured, and scrutinized by trained individuals at the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) or the American Gem Society Laboratories (AGSL), using various industry tools. A certificate includes an analysis of the diamond's clarity, color, dimensions, symmetry, polish and other characteristics. You should receive a certificate with any diamond you purchase. The GIA and AGSL laboratories are among the most respected in the diamond industry.
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For the ultimate peace of mind, ask your jeweler to provide an independent diamond grading report with your diamond. The most widely used and respected reports are those issued by the independent GIA Laboratory, which provides grading reports on the world’s most important diamonds. A professional jeweler can arrange to have your diamond graded and even have a personal message or unique GIA Diamond Grading Report number laser-inscribed onto the diamond's girdle (its outer edge).
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Most consumer purchases of significant value come with important certified documentation. Houses have deeds. Vehicles have titles and registration, but what about something as important as a diamond?
A Diamond Grading Report isn’t an appraisal but a scientific blueprint of your stone’s exact qualities. GIA’s heritage as a research and educational institution means they are trusted to provide accurate, unbiased diamond evaluations. All GIA diamond-grading reports contain a hologram, a security screen, and microprint lines as well as other security features that exceed industry guidelines. Simply put, they’re here to help you know what you’re buying.
The most widely used and trusted means of verifying a diamond’s quality and provide positive identification is a Diamond Grading Report or Diamond Dossier®.
A GIA grading report provides an expert analysis of a diamond’s quality based upon the “4Cs” of diamond grading: carat, color, cut and clarity. The GIA Diamond Grading Report also contains a plotting diagram that clearly shows the diamond’s unique inclusions and other clarity characteristics such as inclusions. It undergoes a technical screening process, determining its potential as a synthetic or diamond simulate and is tested to ensure that the color is natural. Because GIA is not affiliated with any commercial enterprise, impartial and accurate analysis of a diamond’s quality and value is assured. GIA employs hundreds of highly trained diamond graders, gemologists, research scientists who scrutinize the diamonds and analyze them, depending on size, with as many as 40 pairs of eyes for each stone. GIA Laboratory experts have graded some of the world’s most famous diamonds, including the legendary Hope Diamond (45.52 carats) and the De Beers Centenary Diamond (273.85 carats).
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The 4 C's are the key characteristics of diamonds: carat, cut, color and clarity. Taking a few minutes now to learn about them will make your purchasing experience smarter, easier and more enjoyable. Not only will you know the exact quality of the diamond you're considering, but you'll be confident that you're paying a fair market price for it. The 4 C's give you the information you need to compare the characteristics of diamonds within one jewelry store or from one store to the next. For more on the 4 C's visit our diamond education page.
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Just as a dollar is divided into 100 pennies, a carat is divided into 100 points. For example, a 50-point diamond weighs 0.50 carats. But two diamonds of equal weight can have very different values depending on the other members of the Four C’s: clarity, color and cut. The majority of diamonds used in fine jewelry weigh one carat or less. Because even a fraction of a carat can make a considerable difference in cost, precision is crucial. In the diamond industry, weight is often measured to the hundred thousandths of a carat, and rounded to a hundredth of a carat. Diamond weights greater than one carat are expressed in carats and decimals. (For instance, a 1.08 ct. stone would be described as “one point o’ eight carats,” or “one o’ eight.”)
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The carat, the standard unit of weight for diamonds and other gemstones, takes its name from the carob seed. Because these small seeds had a fairly uniform weight, early gem traders used them as counterweights in their balance scales. The modern metric carat, equal to 0.2 grams, was adopted by the United States in 1913 and other countries soon after. Today, a carat weighs exactly the same in every corner of the world.
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The flow of Conflict Diamonds has originated mainly from Sierra Leone, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and Ivory Coast. The United Nations and other groups are working to block the entry of conflict diamonds into the worldwide diamond trade. Their approach has been to develop a government certification procedure known as the "Kimberley Process". This procedure requires each nation to certify that all rough diamond exports are produced through legitimate mining and sales activity. All rough diamonds exported from these nations are to be accompanied by certificates. These certificates state that the diamonds were produced, sold and exported through legitimate channels. The certification process accounts for all rough diamonds, through every step of their movement, from mine to retail sale. Retail customers buying a cut diamond are encouraged to insist upon a sales receipt that documents that their diamond originated from a conflict free source.
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Conflict diamonds or as they are sometimes also known "blood" diamonds originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the United Nations Security Council.
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Nations who agree to participate in the Kimberley Process are not permitted to trade with non-member Nations. The Kimberley Process is believed to have significantly reduced the number of Conflict Diamonds that are reaching international gem markets. Today 71 governments and several non-government organizations abide by the Kimberley Process. The only two nations, which remain under Kimberley Process sanctions as of December 2006, were Liberia and Ivory Coast. The World Diamond Council estimates that 99% of all diamonds are now conflict free.
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A well-structured 'Certificate of Origin' regime can be an effective way of ensuring that only legitimate diamonds – that is, those from government-controlled areas – reach market. Additional controls by Member States and the diamond industry are needed to ensure that such a regime is effective. These measures might include the standardization of the certificate among diamond exporting countries, transparency, auditing and monitoring of the regime and new legislation against those who fail to comply.
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About Watches & Timepieces
A watch "complication" is a watch function that does anything other than relay the time. Complications are additional features or mechanical additions to a watch over the standard time and date. For example, a chronograph is a common complication, as well as a day/date or big date. More exclusive complications include minute repeater, tourbillon and retrograde hands. For aficionados of high-end watches, the more complicated, the better.
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Watch or other apparatus with two independent time systems: one indicates the time of day, and the other measures (stopwatch function) brief intervals of time. Counters registering seconds, minutes and even hours can be started and stopped as desired. It is therefore possible to measure the exact duration of an event. There are many variations on the chronograph. Some operate with a center seconds hand, which keeps time on the watch's main dial. Others use sub-dials to time elapsed hours, minutes and seconds. Still others show elapsed time on a digital display on the watch face. Some chronographs can be used as a lap timer ("flyback hand" and "split seconds hand"). The accuracy of the stopwatch function will commonly vary from 1/5th second to 1/100th second depending on the chronograph. Some chronographs will measure elapsed time up to 24 hours. Watches that include the chronograph function are themselves called "chronographs." When a chronograph is used in conjunction with specialized scales on the watch face it can perform many different functions, such as determining speed or distance (see "tachometer"). Do not confuse the term "chronograph" with "chronometer." The latter refers to a timepiece, which may or may not have a chronograph function that has met certain high standards of accuracy set by an official watch institute in Switzerland.
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Technically speaking, all watches are chronometers. But for a Swiss made watch to be called a chronometer, it must meet certain very high standards set by the Swiss Official Chronometer Control (C.O.S.C.). If you have a Swiss watch labeled as a chronometer, you can be certain that it has a mechanical movement of the very highest quality-- undergone a series of precision tests in an official institute. The requirements are very severe: a few seconds per day in the most unfavorable temperature conditions (for mechanical watches) and positions that are ordinarily encountered.
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In horology, a tourbillon or tourbillion ("whirlwind") is an addition to the mechanics of a watch escapement. Invented in 1795 by Swiss watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet, a tourbillon counters the effects of gravity by mounting the escapement and balance wheel in a rotating cage, ostensibly in order to negate the effect of gravity when the timepiece (and thus the escapement) is rotated. Originally created in attempts to improve accuracy, tourbillons are still included in some expensive modern watches as a novelty and demonstration of watch making virtuosity. The mechanism is usually exposed on the watch's face to show it off.
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Gravity was thought to have a very adverse effect on the accuracy of time pieces at the time of the invention of the tourbillon, particularly because pocket watches were often less accurate than stationary clocks of the same construction. The prevailing theory amongst horologists of the time was that pocket watches suffered from the effects of gravity since they were usually carried in the same pocketed position for most of the day, which was vertical, and then held in a different position while being read. Because the movements of pocket watches and similar pieces were oriented with respect to the cases and the dials, their movements were positioned with the axes of motion perpendicular to their faces. This meant that when the timepiece was placed vertically, the axis of motion of the movements would be parallel to the ground, and thus the force of gravity. In such a position, the force of gravity would affect the motion of parts of the movement differently when the parts were in different positions (i.e., moving with gravity or moving against it), which would cause variations in the rate of the movement, which in turn would affect the timepieces' accuracy. If adjusted for one position, the rate would change when the piece was kept in a different position, such as when being held to be read or when placed on a table at night. In a tourbillon, the entire escapement assembly rotates, including the balance wheel, the escape wheel, the hairspring, and the pallet fork, in order to average out the effect of gravity in the different positions. The rate of rotation varies per design but has generally become standardized at one rotation per minute. Most tourbillons use standard swiss lever escapements, but some have a detent escapement, and others contain novel designs. The tourbillon is considered to be one of the most challenging of watch mechanisms to make (although technically not a complication itself) and is valued for its engineering and design principles. Breguet produced the first tourbillon mechanism, which was crafted for Napoleon in one of his carriage clocks (travel clocks of the time were of considerable weight, typically weighing almost 200 pounds). For more information, see the Wikipedia article.
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A mechanical watch is a watch that uses a non-electric/electronic mechanism to measure the passage of time. It is driven by a spring (called a mainspring) which must be wound periodically, and which releases the energy to activate the balance wheel, which oscillates back and forth thanks to the Balance spring at a constant rate, transmitting the impulse through the lever escapement to the gear train, that divides the impulse into hours, minutes and seconds, thus making a 'ticking' sound when operating. Mechanical watches evolved in Europe in the 1600s from spring-powered clocks, which appeared in the 1400s. Mechanical watches are not as accurate as modern quartz watches and are generally more expensive. They are now worn more for their aesthetic and emotional attributes, as a piece of jewelry and as a statement of one's personality, than for their timekeeping ability.
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Jewels are bearings in a watch movement made of ruby, sapphire, crystal, or synthetic ruby. Generally, the steel pivots of wheels turn inside jewels (mostly synthetic rubies) lubricated with a very thin layer of special oil. The jewel's hardness reduces wear to a minimum even over long periods of time (50 to 100 years). Most refined jewels have rounded holes and walls to greatly reduce the contact between pivot and stone. The quality of a watch is determined more on the shape and finishing of jewels rather than their number.
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Jewels serve two purposes in a watch. First, reduced friction can increase accuracy. Friction in the wheel train bearings and the escapement causes slight variations in the impulses applied to the balance wheel, causing variations in the rate of timekeeping. The low, predictable friction of jewel surfaces reduces these variations. Second, they can increase the life of the bearings. In unjeweled bearings, the pivots of the watch's wheels rotate in holes in the plates supporting the movement. The sideways force applied by the driving gear causes more pressure and friction on one side of the hole. In some of the wheels, the rotating shaft can eventually wear away the hole until it is oval shaped, and the watch stops.
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A quartz watch movement is a movement powered by a quartz crystal. Quartz crystals are very accurate. They can be mass-produced which makes them less expensive than most mechanical movements, which require a higher degree craftsmanship.
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An "automatic" wristwatch is a mechanical wristwatch with a self-winding mechanism. In other words, one does not have to wind the crown periodically to keep the watch running. A "manual" or "manual wind" watch must be wound by hand, using the crown, usually every day, to operate continuously. If one were going to own only a single watch, and wear it every day, an automatic would be a good choice, since the watch will be worn consistently enough to stay wound - the owner would never need to manually wind the watch, and would only need to adjust the time to compensate for drift and at changeover to daylight/summer time and back. (In fact, several early automatic movements dispensed with the crown and moved the time-setting mechanism onto the back, under the theory that the mechanism would only be accessed infrequently. This turned out to be a marketing flop - people liked the look and easy accessibility of the crown.) For this reason, most commonly seen watches with more than a simple date window use automatic movements - this includes "triple date" calendars, annual calendars, perpetual calendars, and any of these combined with moonphases. With few exceptions, most manual wind watches have simpler calendars, although they may include other complications like chronographs.
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Collectors who have more than one automatic watch may have difficulty keeping any one watch going continuously. This leads to increased inconvenience if calendars and moonphases must be reset. A solution has been invented - the automatic watch winder. The idea is quite simple: strap the automatic watch to a motor, which then moves the watch enough to keep it wound when not worn on the wrist. That way, one can choose to wear any watch at any time, and not have to reset the time or calendars. More importantly, using a watch winder will keep the watch rotating and thus preventing the oils and lubricants in the watch from drying up and causing damage over time.
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This is a watch with the day/date/year indicators and is called perpetual because it automatically adjusts to months with 30 days and to the 28 or 29 days in February. Unless it takes into account century years that are not leap years, it will need adjusting in 2100, 2200 and 2300 (because of a glitch in the Gregorian calendar), so when you bequeath the watch to your heirs be sure to leave instructions.
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