Diamond Cuban Link Chain Guide

A diamond Cuban is two purchases stapled together. The first is the gold chain: width, length, karat, solid or hollow. The second is a field of small diamonds covering the face of those links. If a seller will only talk about the sparkle, they are hiding the more expensive half, or they are hiding that the gold half is a shell.

Our catalog splits those halves cleanly, by not combining them. Search the chain wall and you get eight plain Cubans. The Miami Cuban Chain 5mm at $4,260 is solid 10K gold with no stones. The hollow 8.5 mm at $4,870 is wider and still plain. There is no third row where those links are paved. If you want that row, it is a custom Cuban, and the rule is the same as any custom job here: idea, then a design and an exact price, and nothing is made until you agree.

That absence is useful. It stops a plain-gold price and an iced price from being compared as if they were the same SKU. Use the plain chains as the gold floor, then add stones in your head only after someone has specified the stones. The floor is explained in what a Cuban costs.

Carat is weight, not width. GIA defines one carat as 200 milligrams. A Cuban covered in diamonds is almost always many small stones, called melee, added up into one total carat weight. A "10 carat Cuban" can be two hundred tiny stones. It is not one 10 carat diamond hanging on a chain. Total carat weight is still the right number to ask for. It is just not a measure of how big each stone looks.

We can show you how total carat gets written when we actually sell it, on pieces that are not Cubans. These are lab-grown diamond necklaces, priced as finished jewelry:

Piece	Total carat on the listing	Price
Mixed Lab Diamond Necklace 6.75 ct	6.75 ct	$5,500
Round Lab Diamond Necklace 9.18 ct	9.18 ct	$5,300
Round Lab Diamond Necklace 18.48 ct	18.48 ct	$6,500
Round Lab Diamond Necklace 30 ct	30 ct	$8,950

Look at the 6.75 ct necklace at $5,500 and the 9.18 ct necklace at $5,300. More carats, less money. That happens when stone size, gold weight, and setting are different. Carat count alone never prices a paved chain. Bring the same suspicion to any Cuban that leads with a carat number and hides the millimeter of gold under it.

Three products get lumped into "iced."

• Natural diamond is carbon crystallized in the earth. It is the expensive version of the same crystal.
• Lab-grown diamond is the same crystal, grown by people. The FTC requires sellers to say so. Lab-grown is not a fake diamond. It is a diamond with a different origin, and it should cost less than a natural of the same size and grade.
• Moissanite and cubic zirconia are not diamonds. Moissanite is a different mineral. Cubic zirconia is a different material again. Both can look bright in a photo. Neither should be described as a diamond Cuban.

We do not sell moissanite. The word will not show up as a product on this site. If an outside quote will not say natural, lab-grown, or simulant, you do not have a quote. You have a picture. JCK's coverage of the FTC disclosure rule is the short version of the legal point: the origin has to be said out loud.

On the pieces we do grade in-house, the lab and natural diamond rings and the big diamond necklaces are recorded as E color and VS1 clarity. That is a specific grade on those pieces. It is not a blanket claim about every small stone in every earring on the site. A diamond Cuban, if you commission one, needs its own grade written down. Do not borrow the ring's grade and paste it onto a chain.

Small stones on a chain live a harder life than a center stone in a ring. The chain flexes, hits zippers, and gets taken on and off by the clasp. The setting has to survive that.

• Pavé uses tiny beads of metal over the edge of each stone. It looks continuous. If a bead is thin or worn, a stone falls out and the hole looks black.
• Prongs on each stone are easier to see and easier to check. A bent prong is obvious. A missing bead in pavé is easier to miss until the stone is gone.
• Channel or bar settings hold stones between walls of gold. They protect the edge better and show a bit less of the stone.

Before you pay, look down the row under a light. You want even height, no black holes, and no stone sitting higher than its neighbors. Tug nothing. Just look. Ask what happens if a stone is missing when the piece arrives. Our policy on the jewelry we do sell is narrow and written: insured shipping, a 7-day window to report a manufacturing defect, no refunds, sales final. Get the stone count in writing at purchase so "it arrived short" is a fact, not a mood.

GIA's note on VVS versus VS is the grade question people overpay on. VVS means very, very slight inclusions. VS means very slight. At melee sizes, neither is an eye-visible flaw across a dinner table. VS is a normal commercial grade for a chain. VVS is a choice. It is not the difference between "real" and "not."

Diamonds hide the gold. That is the oldest trick in this category. A hollow 8 mm chain covered in stones can look more expensive than a solid 5 mm chain and contain less gold. Ask for the gram weight of the gold and whether the links are solid or hollow, in addition to the carat weight of the stones. If the seller only knows the carats, they are selling you the topping.

Use our plain prices as a smell test, not as a formula. A solid 5 mm with no stones is $4,260 in 10K. An iced chain that claims to be solid, wider than 5 mm, and full of diamonds, and that costs less than $4,260, is not a miracle. Something in the claim is thin: the gold, the stones, or the length.

The clasp on a stone-set chain has to match the new weight. A box clasp with a safety latch is the usual answer on a wide Cuban, because it can sit flush and it has a second lock. A small lobster that was fine on a plain 3 mm chain is not automatically fine once the chain is paved and a pendant is added. Blue Nile's clasp guide and Ross-Simons' safety-clasp notes describe the hardware. Our plain Cubans do not print a clasp name, so we will not invent one for a diamond chain we do not list. The plain-language version is lobster vs box.

1. Natural, lab-grown, or not a diamond? One of those three, in writing.
2. Total carat weight, and roughly how big each stone is. "10 carats" without stone size is half an answer.
3. Color and clarity, at least a range. Do not accept "high quality" as a grade.
4. Gold karat and grams, solid or hollow. 10K or 417, 14K or 585, 18K or 750.
5. Width and length. Millimeters across one link. Inches with the clasp closed.
6. Setting type, and whether you can see the back of the links or the stones cover both sides. Single-sided ice is normal. Pretending it is double-sided is not.
7. Clasp and safety latch. Look at them. Do not trust the render.

If the answer to any of those is "it depends" and there is still no number, stop. The plain chains you can buy with the numbers already filled in are in gold Cuban links and the full Cuban set. Diamond necklaces that are not chains live in iced-out jewelry and diamond Cuban links, and you should read the title of each piece before you assume the pattern. A round lab diamond necklace is not a Cuban just because it is bright. If the links are oval, flat, and interlocked, it is a Cuban. If the diamonds are a line of separate settings, it is a tennis line or some other diamond necklace. The photo decides. The category name does not.

The showroom address is 7900 NW 27th Ave, Unit 506, Miami FL 33147. Phone 954-504-5640. Bring the seven questions if you are comparing a chain from somewhere else. We would rather look at a stamp than argue about a screenshot.