I’m thinking about buying a monster synthetic diamond.
Would a 5 carat diamond, cut in the shape of a flat oval, be the size of a raisin, a grape or…?
It’s one full gram of almost pure carbon, so approximately raisin-sized sounds about right. Here’s a picture of one on a finger for an impression of scale, you can probably extrapolate how oval you need it to be from there.
Edit: Sorry, my mistake, that’s apparently a topaz. All the other search hits on the page were diamonds and they look sort of similar, so I didn’t check too closely before posting. Oh well, here’s a link with dimensions for a diamond the same weight.
http://se.bluenile.co.uk/radiant-diamond-5-carat-good-cut-i-color-si2-clarity_LD00307810?rf=pd
Go here, and scroll part of the way down the page. There’s a composite photo of a bunch of celebrity engagement (and other) rings, with the carat sizes of the stones. Looks to me like 5 carats is bigger than a raisin, much smaller than a grape.
Want synthetic? Get moissanite. Spectacular fire and sparkle, with the warmth of a diamond, unlike CZ.
I wonder why everybody confuses synthetic diamonds with CZ.
A lot will depend on the setting, too. The right setting can make a stone look much bigger than it is.
Heh, there’s even a Straight Dope article about it: