Natural Diamond Bands

By sorting. Small diamonds are grouped at the bench by size and then by colour, and a band's row is drawn from a single group so that the stones agree with one another.

Brightness is judged last and by eye, because two stones of the same size and colour can still return light differently, and one dull stone breaks a row.

The stones set aside outnumber the stones set, and the evenness of the finished band is the visible result of that selection rather than of anything done at the setting stage.

No two mined stones are identical, and a row is matched to within a tolerance rather than to exactness. The aim is that no stone is picked out by the eye at arm's length.

Size is held closest, since the seats are cut to one measurement and a stone that is too large or small sits at a different height from its neighbours.

Colour and brightness are held within a narrow spread, and a row that meets it reads as one line even though every stone in it is individual.

In quality, yes. Small stones are produced across the entire range, from grey and heavily marked material to stones that are bright and clean, because every rough crystal yields some of them.

That range is why two bands with the same carat total can look nothing alike, and why the colour and clarity description of the row matters more than the total.

A band specified by the range of its row tells the buyer where on that spectrum the stones sit, which the weight figure on its own cannot.

Rarely. A small stone carries a small inclusion, and at arm's length on a moving hand most internal marks are below what the eye can resolve.

What does show is a stone that differs from its neighbours, such as one cloudy stone in a clear row, so the consistency of the run matters more than any single stone's grade.

This is why the clarity that suits a band is a level held evenly across the row, rather than the level that would be chosen for a centre stone.

It does, to a useful degree. A yellow setting lends its colour to every stone alike, which narrows the apparent gap between a stone that is slightly warmer and one that is slightly cooler.

A white setting reflects nothing warm into the row, so each stone's own tint is visible and small differences between neighbours show more than they would in a warm metal.

For a natural row that is even but not colourless, a warm metal makes it read as one line, and rose gold does the same more gently than yellow.

Because a row of stones set round a band is cut and set to the circumference the ring will have, so the band is built for the finger rather than adjusted to it afterward.

Size, metal and colour multiply into far more combinations than can sensibly be held finished, and ordering lets the buyer specify all three at once.

The row is then selected for that particular band, which is where the matching described above is actually done, and it is done once the size and the metal are known.

The size, the metal and its colour, and the row of stones selected to fit that circumference. All three are fixed before the bench work begins.

Changing any of them afterward is a partial remake rather than an adjustment, which is why a band ordered this way rewards care over the size and the colour.

Confirming the size against a ring already worn on that finger, and choosing the colour against whatever the band will sit beside, is the preparation that matters.

The sixtieth, on the traditional list, and the tenth on modern lists, which is why a diamond band is so often given at a decade.

In practice the custom has loosened and a band is given at whatever year a couple chooses to mark, or to mark something other than a year.

What the tradition preserves is the idea of the band as a dated piece, which is why many couples have the year recorded with the order.

It can go either way, and both read as intended. A band in the same colour joins the hand as a continuation of the set, and the two read as one arrangement.

A band in a clearly different colour reads as a separate chapter added deliberately, which many couples prefer for a piece that marks a particular year.

What reads badly is a near match, so where the colours are meant to agree, the new band should be chosen against the old one in daylight.

Yes, and increasingly it does. Bands are given at the birth of a child, at a recovery, at a retirement, and on the completion of something that took years, and the form suits all of them.

A band carries a date more naturally than a pendant or a bracelet, because it joins the hand beside the rings that already mark other dates.

The practical step is to record what the band was given for with the order, so that its meaning is kept with the specification and not only in memory.