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"Carat Weight"

The time has come where you can put your brain on cruise control because the rest of Diamonds 101 is a breeze. Carat weight is usually the easiest to understand. The term "carat" was derived from ancient times when diamonds were weighed against the carob bean which weighed one-carat.

There is more to understanding carat weight than that of "the bigger, the better" mentality. Carat weight is the number one factor involved in pricing diamonds. There are two things that must be understood about carat weight. The first thing you must know is that larger diamonds are rarer than smaller diamonds and the price goes up exponentially, that is, the price increases in greater proportions as the diamonds get larger. 

A one-carat round diamond of VS2, H quality will not be double of a one-half carat diamond of equal quality, but instead could be 2.5 to 3 times higher. Smaller diamonds are more abundant and larger diamonds become extremely rare.

The second thing you should know about carat weight is the term points. The term points refers to a diamonds carat weight. 1/100th of a carat is referred to as a point. Therefore, a 1/2 carat diamond (0.50ct) is referred to as 50 points. A 1.00 carat diamond would be referred to as a 100 points.