Diamond Handbook

The Diamond Handbook: 3rd Edition updates jewelry professionals and serious diamond buyers on new developments in diamond grading, treatments, synthetic diamonds, imitations, branded diamonds and fancy-color diamonds. Using close-up photos, it shows how to make visual judgments about clarity, transparency, brilliance and cut quality. As the Journal of Gemmology has stated in its review of the previous edition, the Diamond Handbook “gives the trade reader virtually all the essential information needed to buy and sell diamonds.” A chapter on how to distinguish transparent and black diamond imitations from real natural diamonds has been added. The chapter on synthetic diamonds has eleven new pages, seven of which are photo pages that help trade members identify HPHT- and CVD-grown diamonds with magnification, fluorescence and crossed Polaroid filters. Photos and information have been updated in the chapters on fancy color diamonds, antique cuts and jewelry, diamond fluorescence, diamond treatments and recutting diamonds. A review in Gems & Gemology described the previous edition of the Diamond Handbook as “an entire course on judging diamonds . . . useful to both the jewelry industry and consumers.”