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Named for Teresa Fey, who built this company alongside her husband. Simple, elegant, and made to be worn often.
The 4 C's are how the industry grades a diamond — cut, color, clarity, and carat. They're useful and they're standardized. They also don't tell you everything, but you can't have the second conversation until you've had this one.
Not All C's Are Equal
All four matter. They do not matter equally.
Cut affects how a diamond looks more than the other three combined — and it's the one most often compromised, because cutting for beauty means throwing weight away. We start with cut for that reason, and we'd start there whether or not it was the fashionable advice.
#1 Cut
The Most Important C
Cut determines how a diamond handles light. Cut well, a stone sends light back to your eye — it looks brighter, livelier, and often larger than a poorly cut diamond of exactly the same weight.
Here's the part the industry doesn't advertise: most diamonds are cut to preserve carat weight, not to maximize beauty. Every fraction of a millimeter removed in pursuit of ideal proportions is weight the cutter can't sell. That's why two one-carat diamonds can differ enormously in both price and appearance.
This is ground our family has worked for four generations. In the early 1970s, Ed Fey built the first computer models of diamond cutting, and we've bought on light performance ever since.
Why Cut Matters
Maximizes brilliance and fire
Improves visual size
Creates stronger light return
Affects beauty more than any other grade
#2 Color
From Colorless to Warm
Color measures the faint body tint present in a diamond, graded from D — completely colorless — down to Z, a light yellow or brown.
Colorless is rarer and priced accordingly. But the grade you actually need depends on the shape, the setting, and your own eye. Warmer stones read whiter in yellow or rose gold. Emerald and other step cuts show color more readily than brilliant cuts do. There's a right answer for your ring, and it is not always D.
Color Scale
D–F: Colorless
G–J: Near Colorless
K–M: Faint Warmth
N–Z: Noticeable Color
#3 Clarity
Every Diamond Is Unique
Clarity describes the natural features formed inside a diamond as it grew. The industry calls them inclusions.
Most are microscopic and invisible without magnification. The goal usually isn't a flawless stone — it's one that's clean to the naked eye, which is where the value sits. An SI1 that faces up clean costs meaningfully less than a VVS2 nobody could tell apart from it across a dinner table.
And on a natural diamond, those inclusions are the record of how it formed. No two stones carry the same ones.
Clarity Grades
FL / IF
VVS1 / VVS2
VS1 / VS2
SI1 / SI2
I1 / I2 / I3
#4 Carat Weight
Size vs. Visual Size
Carat measures weight, not size.
A well-cut diamond can look larger than a heavier stone with poor proportions, because a badly cut diamond hides its weight down in the depth where nobody sees it. Carat should always be read alongside cut, never on its own.
Carat Facts
1 carat = 100 points
0.50 ct = 50 points
2.00 ct = 200 points
Remember
Bigger isn't always better. A beautifully cut diamond makes a stronger impression than a larger one that leaks light — and it will still be doing that in fifty years.
Related Guides
Beyond The 4 C's
The qualities a grading report never scores, and the reason two diamonds with identical grades can look nothing alike.
Responsible Sourcing
Where our diamonds come from, who we buy them from, and the standards we hold ourselves to.
Why Fey & Co.
Bespoke Design
Every piece starts with your idea, not a catalog. From choosing the stone to setting the last prong, your jewelry is designed one-on-one and made for you specifically.
Designed & Crafted by Fey
Ninety-nine percent of what we sell is designed and produced in-house or locally, by people we know by name. That's why we can answer any question you have about how your piece was made.
Jewelry for a Lifetime
Resizing, cleaning, repairs, and the occasional rescue after a bad day. We're still here decades after the sale, because a piece meant to last a lifetime needs someone to look after it.
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