Wow ‘Em Every Time: Blue Diamond Rings
You remember it: The fabulous blue diamond necklace called "La Coeur de la Mer" (The Heart of the Ocean) served as a focus in the film "The Titanic." (Didn't you want to dive into the cold Atlantic when Rose threw that gorgeous necklace overboard?)
Luckily you don't have to be a rich aristocrat to have your own blue diamond, as blue diamond rings are among today's most popular colored gemstone jewelry. Rare and desirable, they have a history of beauty and intrigue.
The largest blue diamond ever found was the Regent, or Pitt, Diamond, originally a 410-carat stone found by a mine slave in 1698. Eventually bought by Thomas Pitt, grandfather of William Pitt who founded Pennsylvania, the colorless diamond with the faint blue tinge was sent to England for styling. The result: a 140-carat cushion-shaped, brilliant-cut stone. France's regent, the Duke of Orleans, bought the diamond from Pitt in 1717, and renamed the diamond for himself. After being used by the French royals and later Napoleon Bonaparte in many ways (such as in Napoleon's sword), the Regent Diamond today is in the French Royal Treasury at the Louvre Museum.
Perhaps the most famous deep-blue diamond – looking a lot like "The Heart of the Ocean" -- is the Hope Diamond, part of the gem and mineral collection at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. The Hope Diamond is no little gem – it weighs a whopping 45.52 carats!
Because natural blue diamonds are so rare, methods of producing intensely colored diamonds have been developed. Diamonds are treated with heat, pressure and radiation to create colors (although there's no guarantee what color will result). Jewelers believe that today's manufacturing process creates blue diamonds in the same way that natural colored stones were produced millions of years ago. Virtually all of the blue diamonds available for jewelry today, including blue diamond rings, will most likely be what's known as enhanced, or treated, blue diamonds.
Because of this expensive processing, blue diamonds are more costly than near-colorless ones (which typically have a yellow tinge to them). But once you put that extraordinary blue diamond ring on your finger, you know you have something truly precious.
When you choose your ring, use the same qualities – color, clarity, cut and carat -- to rate blue diamonds as you would to rate a colorless diamond.
Since we've already covered color, think about cut. Brilliant cuts produce stones such as the round solitaire, with 58 facets, which will give a blue diamond ring that sparkles on your finger. For those who'd like an unusual cut to go with their diamond's unusual color, the trillion (a triangle cut), or a "step cut" such as the emerald or the princess may be preferred.
Blue diamonds are usually set in white gold or platinum to show off their color, but blue diamonds set in yellow gold can be striking as well. Whatever setting you choose, your heart will surely go on.
