Two diamonds

II

Both

The same diamond.

Both are carbon in a cubic crystal, with the same hardness and the same light: seen one at a time, the naked eye can rarely tell them apart.

Four things change: where they come from, the mark they carry inside, at times a shade of colour, and the price. The same graver sets both.

III

Laboratory grown

From a seed of diamond, atom by atom.

It is born in a press, under high pressure and high temperature: the method is called HPHT, and the origin of each one is known.

III

Laboratory grown

Its colour sits in the three highest grades of the scale. The inclusions are so minute that a trained eye, at ten times magnification, can barely find them.

Grade

D-F, VVS

IV

Natural

Over a hundred kilometres down.

Each one carries a signature: almost always a small inclusion, a minute crystal shut inside the diamond as it grew, taken from the place where it was born. No two are alike.

IV

Natural

When it changes hands, the time inside it goes too.

Seen on its own, it is a white with a faintly warm undertone, among the highest grades of the scale; beside a diamond of a higher grade, the difference shows. The signature is found under a loupe: on silver the naked eye does not, as a rule, see it; on gold it is more minute, and even under a loupe it has to be looked for.

Grade

Silver F-G, SI · Gold F, VS