Diamonds come in a wide variety of colors. From traditional whites to yellows, pinks, blues, greens and even the very rare red. These non white colors are generally referred to as fancy colors and tend to be sold based on their own separate scales of value based on color depth and intensity. Traditional white and off white colors though are groups into a standard letter grading system created by GIA, the Gemological Institute of America.

GIA decided to start their color scale with the letter D because at the time many jewelers were using a wide variety of grading scales, but none were using anything below the letter C. Once the start of the scale was determined the colors were then grouped in colorless, near colorless, faint yellow, very light yellow, light yellow and fancy.

While the colorless diamonds command the highest prices, the best value for the dollar tends to be in the near colorless color range, especially the G, H, and I colors.

Tomorrow’s tip will help explain the clarity scale.

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