W.E.D.D.I.N.G.

Posted on:  August 31st, 2010

Part of the pleasure in choosing diamond wedding rings is to wonder about the  history of these diamonds and their creation. The following is a compilation of facts associated with diamonds and their trade.

White diamonds are the purest diamonds on the market, untainted by colour caused by elements such as boron or nitrogen combining with carbon during formation.

Engagement rings have been a part of betrothal rituals in the West since the late Fifteenth Century, when the Archduke Maximilian of Austria gave a diamond ring to the young heiress Mary of Burgundy.

Diamond Wedding is the 60th Wedding Anniversary, traditionally associated with the giving of diamonds.

Dresden Green Diamond is a very rare natural diamond; exposure to natural radioactivity accounts for its colour. It is currently on display in Dresden.

Incomparable is the name of the largest, flawless brown diamond ever found in Africa in 1984.

Noor-Ol-Ain translates as ‘Light of the Eye’ and is a beautiful pink diamond, originally from India, and now part of the Iranian Crown Jewels; it is the centrepiece of the former Empress of Iran’s wedding tiara.

Golconda Mines, in Southern India, were the original source of diamonds before the diamond fields of Brazil and South Africa were discovered. Many famous diamonds, especially white diamonds, are said to have been discovered here and this enhances their mystery. Diamonds are no longer mined in this area.

We, at Marlows can supply all the diamonds and diamond rings to suite every stage of your relationship; diamond engagement rings, wedding bands and diamond eternity rings.

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E.N.G.A.G.E.M.E.N.T.

Posted on:  August 30th, 2010

Becoming engaged to be married is an important step and we at Marlows would like to offer some snippets of information that will help you to make the best choice in diamond engagement rings.

E is for the eight facets of the old single cut; developed in 14th Century Europe.

N is for nitrogen, which produces yellow diamonds if combined with carbon during the formation of diamonds.

G is for the girdle which is the diameter or outer edge of diamonds. It can vary in thickness and also be faceted.

A is for Asscher cut diamonds which are an octagon shape; developed by the Asscher brothers in 1902.

G is for grading, an essential process involving examination of the cut, colour, clarity and carat of diamonds. They are then given a certificate which all reputable jewellers will supply with their diamond engagement rings.

E is for the emerald cut, a rectangle shape, like a cushion, commonly used for emeralds. When used with diamonds the flawlessness of white diamonds is highlighted. This cut was very popular in the early Twentieth Century.

M is for the marquise cut which resembles a boat, hence the alternative name of ‘navette’. It is a stretched oval, allegedly a reproduction of the beautiful lips of Madam de Pompadour, the mistress of King Louis XV of France.

E is for the old European cut, developed in the Nineteenth Century, the most brilliant of its day.

N is for Isaac Newton, who discovered that white light in diamonds is composed of a rainbow of colours.

T is for the table which is the name given to the top facet in brilliant cut diamonds.

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How Can You Tell If You Have Chosen Correctly?

Posted on:  August 28th, 2010

When choosing diamond engagement rings you need to be aware of some crucial factors. When choosing your life partner you also need to be aware of the same crucial factors. We at, Marlows, would like to help you choose correctly with the following tips, which you can choose to read with a pinch of salt.

Your diamonds should always be fiery, a fine quality in a life partner, but maybe too much for everyday! Brilliant life partners can be stimulating and you would never be at a loss for good ideas. Brilliant loose diamonds will also be a lifelong pleasure.

The pure white light in diamond engagement rings bursts into the beautiful colours of the rainbow. Maintaining colour in your relationship is essential to keeping it alive; avoid settling into a rut. Keep alive the romanticism of that first date for the rest of your lives.

Solid gold is a required component for the ring to support those lovely diamonds, showing them to their best advantage. Having a solid gold basis of love and trust to your relationship is as obvious as that setting.

Gold is measured in karats, from nine to twenty-four, depending upon the hardness of the metal. In a relationship there needs to be a mix of hard and soft; nine karat hard when tough decisions have to be made and twenty-four karat soft for those romantic moments.

If this mix is maintained for a lifetime, then there will be no problem maintaining your relationship.

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Know Your Diamonds

Posted on:  August 22nd, 2010

Choosing diamond rings is a serious business and is made a lot easier if you already know something about the basic criteria. Diamonds are graded by colour, cut, clarity and carat; commonly known, and easily remembered, as the 4Cs. All the diamonds that we at Marlows sell are issued with certificates that specify these details.

The cut refers to the way that rough loose diamonds are faceted to make the best of the light falling into the diamonds. The cut refracts the white light into the brilliant fiery rainbow that is seen in the stones. The cut often affects the shape of diamonds as well.

The colour is just that, the best and purest being clear or ‘white’, which is all colours rolled into one. Diamonds do come in other colours such as blue, pink, black and green. These are produced during the formation of diamonds as a result of the carbon elements mixing naturally with other elements under high pressure and temperatures. For example, boron mixed with carbon produces a blue diamond. These colours can also now be produced artificially in the laboratory.

Clarity denotes the lack of flaws or ‘inclusions’, usually not visible to the naked eye. In the diamonds trade it is usual to grade this over a ten times magnification of the stones.

Carat is the weight of diamonds, based upon one carat equalling 2 grams. As weights became more sophisticated the weight for a carat was fixed at 2 grams.

Once you have some knowledge of these facts about diamonds your decision to choose the appropriate diamond engagement rings becomes a lot easier.

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Keeping Your Diamonds Safe

Posted on:  August 18th, 2010

After all the careful thought and effort that goes into choosing diamond engagement rings; it is sensible to look after them so that they will last a life-time.

Depending upon the value of your jewellery, check your existing household insurance policy to make sure you are covered in the event of you losing your diamonds. It might be tempting to wear your diamond engagement rings all the time; however, it is not a good idea to wear them when you are doing housework. Nor is it safe to wear them during exercise, when you risk injury to yourself and/or others. If you are holidaying in less developed countries then it is wise not to wear diamonds which will draw attention to you and put you at risk of theft. A beach holiday with the damaging effects of sand, salt spray and the residue from sunscreen lotions, can also all take their toll on your precious diamond rings.

However, bearing all the above in mind, it is very easy to care for your diamonds as they are the hardest substance in existence. Make sure you clean your diamond engagement rings gently in liquid detergent at regular intervals and polish them dry with a soft, lint-free cloth – this does not mean doing the washing up without wearing protective gloves! When not in use, keep them in separate compartments in your jewellery box or store them separately in the original boxes. At Marlows we take great care with our diamonds and want you to enjoy them at their best.

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The Rainbow of Light

Posted on:  August 16th, 2010

The diamonds in diamond engagement rings display rainbows of light which are an intrinsic part of their beauty. The science behind this was discovered over four hundred years ago by Sir Isaac Newton. He demonstrated that light was white but was made up of the seven colours of the rainbow. These are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet and can be remembered by the mnemonic Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain.

Newton’s experiment involved passing light through a prism, that is a pyramid- shaped piece of smooth glass, to break or refract light into its component colours. Then he used a second prism to turn it back into white light, proving that white light is in fact a rainbow of colours. The colours are not mixed to produce white light, but combined in correct proportions. This now famous physics experiment can be observed naturally by the action of sunlight through a raindrop, producing a rainbow in the sky.

The facets that are cut into diamonds reproduce the same effect as Newton’s prism, capturing the light and refracting it into the flashing colours at the centre of your diamonds. These must be cut precisely taking account of the original shape of the loose diamonds to produce this brilliant effect and to minimise the leakage of light from the diamonds. This fabulous effect can only be produced by using white diamonds, not coloured ones. At Marlows we use the best quality clear or ‘white’ diamonds to produce these unique brilliant colours in diamond engagement rings.

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A Hand Full of Light

Posted on:  August 15th, 2010

When the sunlight catches brilliant cut diamonds, a burst of fiery light is produced; but this was not always the case. Diamonds have developed over the centuries, from rough cut stones to the polished brilliants in many diamond engagement rings. The development of the shapes and cuts of diamonds has a lot to do with technology but also, with light. The tools and lighting now available to modern diamond cutters, enabling finer cuts, are far advanced to those used by Antwerp diamond cutters in their workshops a couple of centuries ago.

It is only in the past hundred years or so that we have had bright electric light. Until then it was rush tapers and candles, a very soft glow. The first diamonds in Europe in early Medieval times came from India and were simply cut into symmetrical facets to make best use of the original shapes of the rough diamonds. The cushion cut, sometimes called the Old Mine cut, was developed in the Seventeenth Century to make better use of candle light at night when diamonds were increasingly worn at social events. It is a square cut, with brilliant facets, resulting in diamonds that catch the available low light. Since then, the brilliant cut has been refined with the best cut, the 58 faceted modern Round Brilliant cut, developed in the early Twentieth Century by Marcel Tolkowsky.

At Marlows, we are proud to supply exquisite loose cut diamonds to make up diamond engagement rings and jewellery to sparkle on any occasion and in every kind of light.

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After the Engagement Rings

Posted on:  August 14th, 2010

Now that you have chosen your beautiful diamond engagement rings you need to consider the next step. Weddings have become big business with the average cost estimated at £20,000. This is a huge cost which you might like to re-assess in the light of being more environmentally friendly.

Try not to get entangled with small details first and concentrate on the big picture; what type of wedding do you want? Some couples cannot bear the thought of getting married without all their friends and family around them; to others a small quiet wedding is just the thing. The catering for the reception can easily be sourced locally, making the most of seasonal items. If your dream is more exotic, then research your ideal location well in advance and maybe off-set your carbon foot-print in other ways.

Clothing is always an important item and there are many options from hiring, buying new or second-hand, even making your own. Present lists are a wonderful opportunity to reduce waste by ensuring you do not receive duplicate gifts. You can reduce waste further by taking a tip from bygone days and asking that the gifts be wrapped in tea-towels or table napkins instead of wrapping paper.

However you choose to celebrate your day, make sure that you enjoy the planning and choosing each item. At Marlows we are glad to help by providing a wide selection of gold wedding rings and wedding ring sets to fit with your chosen style.

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Referencing Diamonds

Posted on:  August 10th, 2010

Diamonds and their qualities are frequently used as references in literature. For example, practically anything can “sparkle like diamonds”. Hearts can be “diamond-hard” although it is not uncommon for some people to have “hearts of gold.”

The oldest dated printed book from 868 AD is the Diamond Sutra, currently displayed in the British Library. A sutra is a Buddhist sermon and this one gets its name from part of the text where Buddha says it should be known as ‘The Diamond of Transcendent Wisdom’ because “its teaching will cut like a diamond blade through worldly illusion to illuminate what is real and everlasting”. Even in the Ninth Century China diamonds were know for their hardness and ability to cut.

In films, “Diamonds are Forever” and the great Twentieth Century actress, Marilyn Monroe famously sang, in the film “Some Like it Hot”, that “diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” The Beatles sang of “Lucy in the sky with diamonds” and stars do indeed sparkle and twinkle like diamonds.

Diamonds are also used as an indication of wealth in advertising, with many bank credit cards and business loyalty cards being classed as diamond level. Some products are alleged to have a “diamond standard”. The truly reliable, trustworthy man is referred to in Cockney slang as a “diamond geezer.”

When you choose diamond engagement rings at Marlows you become a part of this diamond magic, expressing your love in a clear-cut way; for, as a Chinese proverb says “Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without”.

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The Fascinating Trade in Diamonds

Posted on:  August 6th, 2010

Trading in diamonds has always been a fascinating business, dating back centuries to the 4th century BC, to the mines and trade in India. Originally, diamonds were traded along the overland Silk and Spice Routes from India and the Far East to Venice; where they were cut and then sold throughout Europe. Venice was briefly the only diamond cutting centre outside of India. However, by the end of the Fourteenth Century Antwerp, Paris, Bruges and Amsterdam had replaced Venice as major cutting centres for diamonds. When Vasco Da Gama discovered a sea route around the Cape of Good Hope in 1499, a new, quicker and safer diamond route from India to Lisbon, and from there to Antwerp, was born.

India was the only source of diamonds until the discovery of diamonds in South Africa in 1866. The De Beers Diamond Company was founded shortly afterwards and dominated the diamonds industry until the early Twenty-First Century. Today, the industry has additional big players from Russia and Australia. Antwerp is still the major centre for the trade in diamonds with over 80% of rough diamonds and 50% of polished diamonds passing through the ‘bourse’ (diamond exchange). Business here still follows traditional lines, with deals being made with a handshake and cash.

We at Marlows, based in Birmingham’s two hundred year old Jewellery Quarter, respect these traditions and are proud to be part of the latest, fastest diamond route – the Internet Diamond Route. Browse our website and choose your diamond engagement rings and wedding bands in complete confidence, knowing that you are an important part of this fascinating, long-established trade.

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