There are four major
criteria influencing the price of a diamond: the cut, the colour, the purity and
the weight. Lately, under the influence of a whim of the Korean buyers, the
market is also influenced by the fluorescence. You have all sorts of clients.
This one will buy parcels of heavier weights for the same price as lighter
weights but than they are more impure or less well cut. A well-cut diamond is a
light accumulator. It reflects from one facet to the other and exits from the
top. That gives it that wonderful brilliance. The second criterion, the colour,
is also an important factor for the price of the diamond. The rule here is, the
less colour it has, the purer it is, the more beautiful and expensive it is.
Finally, the purity and the weight. It is said that a diamond is pure “loupe
ten times” when an imperfection is spotted with a 10 times enlarging loupe.
But today, all diamonds from a certain degree of purity are verified. The H.R.D.
is the best standard for such certificates and accepted all over the world as
being trustful. And the weight?
Simple, we are talking about the famous carats. The heavier the stone, the more
carats it weighs, the more is its valour.
Antwerp alone concentrates 75 % of world diamond affairs. Last figure I have is
about 20 billion dollars a year. But it changes and increases all the time.
It’s the concentration of services in a small area that is a major advantage,
all is done in a radius of 300 meters, and everybody knows everybody. Time is
money, and time is gained here a lot by this proximity. Custom formalities are
done at the spot in special office, the officials are very cooperative and the
diamond byres are happy to be plunge after work hours in the Burgundian life
style of a metropolis of multiple facets.
At the end of the Schupstraat, turn right in the Lange Herentalsestraat. The
MUSEUM OF DIAMOND is at nos.31-33 and is worth a visit. You’ll learn
everything about the fascinating history of diamond along the centuries and how
it turns from rough to cut diamond.
Continue the Lange Herentalsestraat and stop at the corner at one of the most
famous patisseries of Antwerp: “Del Rey”. Will you be able to resist? A real
Tantalus torment…..
Continue a fifty meters more and you’re on the Keyserlei again, described in
my Antwerp walk.
There are four major
criteria influencing the price of a diamond: the cut, the colour, the purity and
the weight. Lately, under the influence of a whim of the Korean buyers, the
market is also influenced by the fluorescence. You have all sorts of clients.
This one will buy parcels of heavier weights for the same price as lighter
weights but than they are more impure or less well cut. A well-cut diamond is a
light accumulator. It reflects from one facet to the other and exits from the
top. That gives it that wonderful brilliance. The second criterion, the colour,
is also an important factor for the price of the diamond. The rule here is, the
less colour it has, the purer it is, the more beautiful and expensive it is.
Finally, the purity and the weight. It is said that a diamond is pure “loupe
ten times” when an imperfection is spotted with a 10 times enlarging loupe.
But today, all diamonds from a certain degree of purity are verified. The H.R.D.
is the best
standard for such certificates and accepted all over the world as
being trustful. And the weight?
Simple, we are talking about the famous carats. The heavier the stone, the more
carats it weighs, the more is its valour.