An important distinction must be made here before we continue with our introduction of fancy color diamonds. When shopping for fancy color diamonds, it’s crucial that you buy from a reputable dealer and verify that the diamond you are interested in is a NATURAL fancy color diamond. One of the most common lab treatments performed on diamonds is taking cheap brown-colored diamonds and treating them with high pressure and high temperature. This treatment changes their color to a wide variety of copies of natural fancy diamond colors. If you do buy these diamonds, know that they are much cheaper than natural fancy colors precisely because they are created from the cheapest of the cheap diamonds. The saturation of color in the treated diamonds is so strong that most of them look like semi-precious colored gems.
Buyers of white diamonds are always taught that the most important of the “Four Cs” is diamond Cut quality. The reason is simple – white diamonds are treasured precisely because of their radiance and fiery brilliance. White diamond’s cut quality is what determines, more than any other factor, just how brilliant the diamond is.
Brown diamonds possess warm, golden tones that make them a softer, gentler alternative to colorless diamonds. The world’s largest cut natural diamond is a brown diamond – a dark, rich champagne stone called the Golden Jubilee. The Golden Jubilee, at 545 carats, was offered to the King of Thailand to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his ascension to the throne. It took no less than three years to polish this massive stone!
Colored diamonds contain impurities or structural defects that cause the coloration. The most common impurity, nitrogen, causes a slight to intense yellow coloration depending upon the type and concentration of nitrogen present. Yellow diamonds are the most common and affordable natural fancy color. The Tiffany diamond is a 287 carat, golden yellow diamond found in South Africa in 1887. It was bought by Tiffany Jewelers for $18,000, who had it cut as a brilliant 90 facet, 128 cushion cut to highlight it's exceptional beauty. Ask Tiffany what it's worth now. On Oct. 15, 2011 a 4.19 ct cushion-shaped natural fancy vivid orange diamond ring achieved a record price of $2.96 million or $705,587 per carat.
Green diamonds can contain clustered nitrogen atoms or they can contain no nitrogen atoms at all, what gives them their color is that they have been bombarded by nuclear rays during their growth. This bombardment makes them absorb magenta wavelengths, which gives them their green color. Green diamonds are extremely rare.
Pink diamonds have become increasingly popular and are becoming more and more rare. In fact, almost all of the world’s Pink diamonds come from one mine in Western Australia. The famed Argyle mine also produces a large percentage of the world’s brown also known as champagne and cognac color diamonds. Before the discovery of this mine in the 1980′s, production of fancy pink diamonds had been scant at best. When Argyle went live, it quickly gained the reputation as the only reliable consistent source of high quality pink diamonds in the world. Argyle Pink Diamonds are collectable and very rare.
Blue is one of the rarest and most desirable colors. Natural Blue Diamonds are so rare that most jewelers have never seen one, and will never own one. The blue diamond is a member of the Carbon family and is the hardest substance known. Natural Blue Diamonds contain the element boron which changes the conductivity of the diamonds.
The whole of the Fancy Color Diamond market, perhaps with the exception of yellow diamonds, has until recently always been something of an exclusive “insider’s club.” These ultra-rare gems were sold only in the most expensive of fine jewelry stores and were the exclusive domain of very serious collectors who were extremely wealthy. The rest of us in the world had never heard of fancy color diamonds.
Now, Fancy Color Diamonds have been gracing magazine and fortune editorials world wide. Celebrities of today wear pink, blue, or yellow diamonds down the red carpet and in the press. Perhaps the most famous fancy color diamond to grace the pages of celebrity gossip was the 6 carat monster, Fancy Vivid Pink Diamond that Ben Affleck gave Jennifer Lopez when he proposed to her.
The Pink Conde Diamond belonged to Louis de Bourbon. It was given to him in 1643 by King Louis 13th of France, in recognition of his service during the 30 year war. Prince Conde displayed it as the top jewel of his walking stick. This 9 carat, pear shaped, light rose pink diamond was donated by his descendants to the French Crown in 1892. You can view this fabulous diamond at the family Chateau turned Museum in Chantilly, France.
Diamond educational seminars are given quarterly at 60 READE in NYC, House of Color Diamonds.
