Welcome to Our Diamond Buyers' Guide

Introduction

The key things to consider when buying a diamond are:

1) Diamond shape, 2) Diamond size, 3) Diamond quality, 4) Certification, and 5) budget.

Each of these are discussed below:

Diamond Shape

There are many diamond shapes to choose from. The most popular shapes are round brilliant and princess.

We have nine different shapes to choose from, including various fancy shapes.

On the right you will see a few examples of some shapes that we offer and how they look when they are set into a solitaire ring. Learn more about diamond shape.

Use our Design-Your-Own ring wizard to create a ring with a round brilliant diamond Use our design your own ring wizard to create a princess cut diamond ring Use our Design-Your-Own ring wizard to create an emerald diamond ring Use our design your own ring wizard to create a ring with a pear shaped diamond
Round brilliant cut diamond shape  Princess cut diamond shape Emerald diamond shape Pear shape diamond

Diamond Size

A diamond is measured in carats. Carats are a measure of weight, each carat being equivalent to 200 milligrams. Carat weight roughly relates to size, as you can see below. We thought it may be useful to see the approximate size of different carat weights, but remember carat is really weight not size, the chart is only for illustrative purposes and is not exact . Learn more about carat size.

 Diamond size - an approximation of diamond carat size

Diamond Quality

The quality of a diamond affects its price.  A perfectly proportioned flawless clear stone will cost a great deal more than one with minor imperfections. In the Design-Your-Own section of our web site you can simply move a slider to alter the quality (and of course, the higher the quality, the higher the price). 

The Design-Your-Own wizard looks like this (right):

The quality of a diamond is actually a complex thing involving how it was cut, what colour it is, and whether it has any defects

In our Design-Your-Own wizard, you can select an advanced view to see how all these things change as you alter the quality slider.

In our Designer Range, our jewellery designer has pre-chosen the diamond, and the details about this are shown once you pick the ring you like.  The price is, of course, shown too.

Design your own high quality diamond ring and choose carat size and diamond quality
Design your own high quality diamond ring

Certification

We believe that it is important for you to know that your diamond is what we say it is. We therefore certify all our diamonds above 0.3carat through independent grading laboratories here in NZ. Certification and reports..

Diamond Price

The following table gives some examples of how price changes with diamond size and quality.   Note that our diamonds range from high to ultra high quality:

Diamond Size/Quality

0.3 carat

Solitaire: a beautiful 0.3 carat round brilliant diamond set in New Zealand 18 carat white gold

0.75 carat

Solitaire: a beautiful 0.75 carat round brilliant diamond set in New Zealand 18 carat white gold

Ultra high quality

Approx NZD $3500

Approx NZD $10,000

 

0.5 carat

Princess: a beautiful 0.5 carat princess cut diamond set in New Zealand 18 carat white gold

1.5 carat

Princess: a beautiful 1.5 carat princess cut diamond set in New Zealand 18 carat white gold

High quality

Approx NZD $5000

Approx NZD $28,000

Start shopping for your engagement ring

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