One carat is equivalent to 200 milligrams.  One carat can also be divided into 100 "points".  A 0.75cts diamond is the same as a 75 points or a ¾-carat diamond.

Larger diamonds are found relatively infrequently in nature and are therefore more valuable.

A 1-carat diamond costs exactly twice the price of a half-carat diamond, right?  Wrong.  Since larger diamonds are found less frequently in nature, which places them at the rarest level, a 1 carat diamond will cost much more than twice as much as a ½-carat diamond (assuming color, clarity and cut remain constant).

Cut and mounting can make a diamond appear larger (or smaller) than its actual weight.  So talk to us about finding the right diamond and setting to optimize the beauty of your stone.

The term carat is a derivative of the word carob.  Carob seeds are surprisingly similar in weight to one another; thus they were used in ancient civilizations as a reference tool to measure the weight of a diamond.  Diamonds were traditionally weighed against these seeds until the system was standardized and one carat was fixed at 0.2 grams (one fifth of a gram).

Many people confuse carat and karat.  Carat refers to the weight of a diamond while karat refers to the purity of gold (not the weight).  You might see a 1-carat diamond set in 18K gold, for example.