Sparkling diamonds capture our hearts and imaginations with their beauty and brilliance. We choose to give the gift of diamonds to those we love. Diamonds say "I love you!", "Happy Birthday!", "Congratulations!," and "Happy Anniversary!"

At Marlen Fine Jewelers, our professional staff makes choosing the perfect diamond easy. We will walk you through the 4 Cs of diamonds, Carat, Clarity, Color and Cut, to help you choose the diamond that is perfect for you.

The 4 Cs were developed by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) to be a uniform system of grading the value of a diamond, based on beauty and rarity.

Carat

Carat is the easiest of the 4Cs, and is simply the weight of the diamond. One carat is 100 points therefore, 1.25 carat diamond is 125 points or 1 ¼ carat.

Clarity

The grading of naturally occurring internal characteristics, called inclusions. The size, number and location determine the diamonds grade and value.

Color

The finest diamonds are ‘colorless’ and receive grades of ‘D’, ‘E’, or ‘F’ while ‘near colorless’ grades are ‘G’, ‘H’, ‘I’, or ‘J’. Below ‘J’ diamonds show distinct tones of yellow or brown. There is no ‘A’, ‘B’, or ‘C’ grades. This chart does not apply to fancy colored diamonds; pink, red, green or blue.

Cut

Allows the beauty of the diamond to be displayed in sparkling flashes and rainbow colors. The better the cut, the more the diamond will refract light. Each diamond needs to be judged on it’s own beauty.

At Marlen’s we will show you different diamonds of varying grades so you can compare, and choose your perfect diamond.