The carat weight of the ring is a major factor that you need to consider while choosing an engagement ring. Nonetheless, many people aren’t sure about what actually does a one carat diamond signify. One carat technically refers to 200 milligrams. That is if you have bought a one carat diamond it would mean that you have purchased about 0.2 grams of the stone. One of the most common misconceptions among people is that the diamonds with larger carat would appear to be larger. This however, may be far from the truth.
History and Origin of Carat Weight
Have you ever wondered why diamonds are measured in carats instead of being measured in grams or kilograms? Or why it is not being measured in quantities that we use for other everyday items?
There is actually a history behind this. The term carat came from the word carob which actually is an evergreen locust-tree that produced edible pods. These seeds were really used as a reference weight by the traders of olden times. We should take it into consideration that there were no hi-tech weighing machines during that time. During that time people used to equate one carat to the weight of a carob pod. This was the simple estimation done during trading.
It is also true that the weight of carob seeds would change with varying sizes. This means that during the olden days of 1890s a one carat diamond would have a weight that lies in the range of 0.94 to 1.06 metric carats. This was one of the biggest uncertainties in cost that was existent for this high paid stone.
A lot of changes had occurred as time passed by, now electronic devices with high precision has substituted the carob seeds. This is also the industry standard that is used for measuring the weight of the diamond.
Most people think the size of the stone to be directly related to the value of the jewelry. Many societies use the diamond weight as a representation for wealth and status of the person. One of the things which advertising campaigns and mass media made the people to believe is that bigger is always better. There were even tag lines like “Make your lady fall in love with a 1-carat diamond”, “Love is as big as it gets” and so on.