If you are like most individuals who are in the market for a piece of diamond jewelry you likely find yourself paying a great deal of attention to carat weight.  With that said and understood, you may not really understand what carat weight is all about.  If that is the case, you most definitely are not alone.

Carat weight measures what is known as the mass of a diamond.  One carat is defined as being a fifth of a gram or exactly 200 milligrams.  On a related note, the point unit equals one one-hundredth of a carat – and is the unit that is most often utilized when a diamond is less than one carat in weight.

While it is true that larger diamonds – diamonds of a higher carat weight – many times are more valuable, the fact is that carat weight is not the only consideration.  Other factors that have an effect on the value of a diamond include cut, color and clarity.