Diamonds are for April

“And the winner of the birthstone lottery is……APRIL!”

For those of you lucky enough to be born in April, your birthstone- Diamond- is the envy of all others. A symbol of fearlessness, strength, balance and of course eternal love (Engagement Rings), diamonds were believed by the Greeks to be splinters of stars that had fallen from heaven.

Although we agree with the Greeks metaphorically, the science tells a different yet equally impressive story:

Most natural diamonds are aged between 1 billion and 3.5 billion years and are formed from pure carbon at approximately 100 miles beneath the earth’s surface, at temperatures exceeding 1200 degrees Celsius. Diamond’s crystal structure is isometric, meaning the carbon atoms are bonded in the same way in all directions. This chemical composition and crystal structure, combined with the formation process gives diamonds their extraordinary qualities, one of which is that it is 58 times harder than anything else in nature. Without any one of these factors, diamond might be just another mineral like graphite- maybe not quite as stunning?

Pure, colourless diamond is the most popular but diamond comes naturally in a variety of beautiful colours including yellow, green, brown, blue, red, pink, grey and even black. Because of the rarity of some of these coloured diamonds, their price is just as likely to take your breath away as their beauty, so it’s not surprising that some of the world’s most famous diamonds are ‘fancy coloured’. At Fred J Malcolm we currently have a number of natural fancy coloured diamonds including yellow and pink (Australian), and can source others on request.

Diamonds also come in a variety of shapes or ‘cuts’ with anything other than a brilliant cut being deemed a ‘fancy cut’ or more simply a ‘fancy’. From their rough form it takes a lot of careful planning, cleaving, bruting, cutting and polishing to fashion diamonds in to their optimum cut in order that they display maximum fire and brilliance. We then select which of these beautifully crafted gems have the required attributes to be part of a Fred J Malcolm piece.

So if you are celebrating a birthday in April, or have locked horns with your other half for 60 or 75 years, make sure you tag them in this post or casually drop in to the conversation this evening that these special occasions are traditionally marked with diamonds, and fingers crossed a little green box will come your way.