This updated and revised Diamond Ring Buying Guide: 8th Edition provides concise yet detailed information on quality evaluation, lab-grown diamonds, fakes, gem treatments, cutting styles, gold, platinum, palladium, silver, alternative metals, settings, ring selection, diamond grading reports, gem care and buying tips. It’s a visual guide that helps you select the best diamonds and mounting for your budget and needs. Written in clear, everyday English, with lots of color photos, the book shows you step-by-step how to evaluate diamonds and settings. It has helped thousands of diamond buyers make smart choices and is a useful reference for jewelry salespeople when answering customers’ questions about diamonds, precious metals and settings. A Gems & Gemology review described the previous edition of the Diamond Ring Buying Guide as “An entire course on judging diamonds in 155 pages of well-organized information . . . the book serves as a checklist for the purchase, mounting and care of a diamond. The photos are excellent.” Brides magazine wrote: “Want to feel truly confident in the jewelry store? Read the Diamond Ring Buying Guide by an industry insider, which will teach you how to judge a quality diamond. What We Love: The seriously savvy shopping tips and the massive color photos that reveal what diamonds look like under a loupe.” Trade paperback, 6" X 9," 264 photos plus diagrams, charts, tables and quizzes. With the exception of the Diamond Handbook which came out two years ago, the Diamond Ring Buying Guide: 8th Edition is the most up to date diamond evaluation and identification guide available. What’s new in the 8th Edition of the Diamond Ring Buying Guide: 1. Chapters on silver and alternative metals because they are now being used for diamond jewelry as a result of the high prices of gold and platinum. 2. A brief chapter on the diamond grading lab documents. 3. A comparison of the benefits of natural diamonds versus those of lab-grown diamonds 4. A brief chapter explaining why for hundreds of years diamonds have been more prized than other gems that are more rare. 5. Updated colored diamond photos and top auction prices 6. A section on how color affects the prices of color-enhanced diamonds 7. A revised chapter on judging cut quality with some new photos 8. A revised chapter on judging diamond clarity and new photo examples of diamond clarity 9. New photo examples of ring mountings and settings 10 A section on 10 ways to save money on diamonds
