Blue White

    I’ve heard many explanations for the term Blue white. It was used by most US jewelers up until 1947. Many people believe it was a term that described diamonds that came from the Premier Mine which produced diamonds that had a slight tint of blue. This would seem to be the case because the Federal Trade Commision defined it as such. However it was their definition of it that made it an undesireable term. It was afterward considered an unfair trade practice to call a diamond Blue White.       It’s much more likely that the term which was used as a grading term, meant what my father described to me. He was a jeweler who bought diamonds during that earlier period before the Gemological Institute of America brought diamond grading indoors.     He told me that diamond cutters and dealers saved their best diamonds for a clear day and went to a northern facing window. The diamonds that were so free of body color (which was usually yellow tinted) that the blue from the sky traveled through them unaltered were called blue white. White diamonds were therefore stones that had just enough tint to cancel the blue with white light coming from the stone. The reason grading was taken indoors was it was discovered that some diamonds fluoresce in ultrviolet. Most of those that do fluoresce, fluoresce blue. Sunlight has ultraviolet in it and many diamonds were being overgraded.  Today Blue White stones would be called colorless and white stones near colorless. 

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