Diamonds can dazzle us with their beauty and are graded according to the Four Cs; colour, clarity, carat and cut. The ideal stone is the flawless white diamond, which we at Marlows offer in our diamond engagement rings.
Inclusions are another name for the flaws that may appear in loose diamonds. Most are invisible to the naked eye and some may only be seen under ten times magnification.
Adamas is the Greek name for the stone, which means hard or indestructible.
Mining is the means by which diamonds are brought to the surface. Mines are either open cast or deep, depending upon how the diamonds were formed.
Orlov diamond, the size and shape of half an egg, allegedly 190 carats, is in the Kremlin in Moscow as part of the Russian regalia. It was given to Catherine the Great by her lover, count Orlov.
Noor is the Arabic for light and one of the most famous diamonds ever found, now part of the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London, is named the Koh-i Noor, which means Mountain of Light.
De Beers, originally set up by Sir Cecil Rhodes in South Africa in the Nineteenth Century, is the dominating company in the diamonds business.
Star of Africa is the second largest diamond in the World, weighing 530.20 carats and set in the Royal Sceptre in the Tower of London. It is one of nine diamonds cut from the massive Cullinan diamond that was found in South Africa in 1905 and present to King Edward VII in 1908.
