Fancy Colors…

I’ve been talking about colorless and near colorless diamonds – those tinted by the more common colors. I also said that diamonds can come in almost every other color of the rainbow. These are called fancy colors.

Until recently fancy colored diamonds have been traded or held only by aficionados, brokers and connoisseurs. These diamonds are extremely rare. Even in the lightest shades – think G color – a pale blue, pink, green, and/or violet can command astronomical prices.

For the average consumer, only the intense and vivid yellows and cognac browns are remotely affordable. Even the brown-series pinks are so rare that the Argyle Mine in Australia has an invitation-only tender for less than 100 stones per year. Less than 1/10th of 1% of Argyle’s diamonds are pinkish and production is dwindling – diamonds are a non-renewable resource.

Collectors are still the primary market for all the fanciest colors. Purples are so rare, that there is virtually no data available on them because their owners have kept them such a well-guarded secret. There are only a handful of known reds. Almost ten years ago a 0.95 ct brick-red diamond sold at auction for $1,000,000 per carat. That is still a ton of money.

As much as I’d like to say that the fancy colored diamond marketplace is all about the rarity of the color, it’s always a big mistake to think that supply is the only determinant of price.

Another factor affecting price is demand – or in this case I’d like to call it taste. For example, to the best of my knowledge pink diamonds are rarer than blue ones. But, pink – especially pale pink – just doesn’t look very good next to most people’s skin. It looks washed out. On the other hand (sic), blue looks stunning, and it is often thought of as royal. So, blues sell more quickly and for more money.

And, then there are the bragging rights. Years ago a fancy color diamond broker told me that the major buyers of his diamonds were mostly from the Persian Gulf. Blue was the super hot ticket. Blue was the color of that rarity we call water. Blue had historical and religious meaning. But, if the blue diamond wasn’t big enough – let’s say only 5 carats – then it simply wasn’t noteworthy of collecting. Ironically, no one else in the world could afford them, so these gorgeous diamonds went begging for quite some time.

Whether colored, near-colorless, or colorless – we’re still talking about what a diamond is. But these days, the story is all about what a diamond does… stay tuned.