Color

Diamonds should be like water: colorless. Why? Because the best color is no color.

Diamonds range from “colorless” to “yellow.” Think of the alphabet, where D is “the most colorless” (or white) and Z is “the most yellow.” The closer to D, the higher the value and price. Differences between color grades are very, very subtle and require a trained eye to discern.

Colorless diamonds are the most valuable and expensive because they’re the rarest. Although an increased shade of yellow — moving down the alphabet toward Z — means decreased value, it doesn’t necessarily mean decreased beauty. If a diamond is cut to optimize refraction and dispersion of light (as Mervis diamonds are), it will appear more colorless than it actually is.

The two major groupings are colorless and near-colorless. That’s D through J on our alphabet scale. Almost all Mervis diamonds fall into this range, so almost all Mervis diamonds are at the high end of the brilliance and beauty scale.

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