Diamond Carat Weight

A carat is a unit of measurement used to weigh a diamond. One carat is equal to 200 milligrams, or 0.2 grams.

!!The word carat is taken from the carob seeds that people once used in ancient times to balance scales. So uniform in shape and weight are these little seeds that even today's sophisticated instruments cannot detect more than three one-thousandths of a difference between them.

Don't confuse it with 'karat', the method of determining the purity of gold.

The process that forms a diamond happens only under very rare circumstances, and typically the natural materials required are found only in small amounts. This means that larger diamonds are uncovered less often than smaller ones. Thus large diamonds are rare and have a greater value per carat. The prices augment with the size of the crystal.