Colored Diamonds

[PinkDiamond]

New Device Grades Fancy Colored Diamonds
By Rob Bates, Senior Editor - Posted on June 27, 2014

"A new device can color-grade both fancy colored diamonds as well as diamonds with secondary hues, says a release from manufacturer ImaGem.

The device uses data from thousands of samples to derive its grades for fancy colored stones, says Dr. Lalit K. Aggarwal, chairman of ImaGem, which manufactures the device.

The device, called the GL3200, can “identify which stones have brown or gray or other hues and then map those on a D through Z scale using scientific measurement technologies,” says Aggarwal, who says he worked on the secondary-hue issue for 20 years. “We now have a scientific method of determining the secondary hue. A lot of different opinions are getting resolved with this technology.”

The machine can grade ..."

http://www.jckonline.com/2014/06/27/new ... -306540353

[PinkDiamond]

7 Things I Learned From Attending the Argyle Pink Tender
By Rob Bates, News Director - Posted on September 9, 2014

ArgyleCardinal.jpg (11.92 KiB) Viewed 598 times

The Argyle Cardinal
Courtesy of Rio Tinto

"Last week, I attended the Argyle pink tender in New York City as a guest of veteran colored diamond dealer Alan Bronstein of Aurora Gems.

For those in need of a refresher, each year the tender sells the best pinks—and a smattering of reds—produced by the Perth, Australia–based Argyle mine. Through a quirk of nature, the Rio Tinto–owned mine unearths not only smaller stones, but a generous amount of colored diamonds, particularly pinks. (It’s produced reds and blues, as well.) Of course, with colored diamonds, generous is a relative term; these diamonds remain, and will likely always be, extraordinarily rare. In the 30-year history of the Argyle mine, only around 1,650 pinks have ever been sold at the tender, says Josephine Johnson, manager, Argyle pink diamonds.

Going to the tender gave me some insights into how these stones are produced and marketed.

- How are these stones priced? It’s complicated.

For many dealers, the best thing about fancy colored diamonds is they are so rare they lack a price list, which means more margin. But that also makes dealing in them challenging. They can be hard to value since there are so few reference points.

The tender does have reserves, and, for the last few years, has provided buyers with estimates based on past prices. (These are ultra-confidential—I even had to turn off my tape recorder when they were discussed.) And while Argyle doesn’t publish its final results—even to participants—it will give losing bidders a ballpark sense of how their bid stacked up against others. (There has never been an actual tie at the tender, Johnson says, but “we have had people miss out by a few dollars.”)

“It’s difficult to predict prices year to year,” admits Johnson. “It’s like an important piece of art. The price can change dramatically. It’s about the appreciation of the piece, what the buyer falls in love with, the appreciation of its rarity.”

When Argyle has compared the behavior of pink diamond prices to that of other commodities, it’s found they behave very similarly to fine-art prices (and are not that closely correlated with white diamond prices). “You have seen a very nice appreciation without the volatility you have seen in rest of the diamond market,” Johnson says.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, there was a greater interest in pink diamonds as a store of value. But Argyle doesn’t necessarily welcome that kind of talk.

“They are not liquid like stocks and shares,” Johnson says. “I don’t think it’s healthy when there is a lot of overly speculative discussion about the value of the stones. You do need to understand them. Yes, they are great stores of wealth, but it’s a very specialized field. You do need to know about the diamonds to make an informed purchase.”

When calculating how much to bid, Bronstein says past prices don’t matter to him. “I never come in looking at anything with any relevance to what has happened in the past,” he says. “In order to know what anything is worth, you have to have a little knowledge of what the market is doing and what similar stones that exist in the market are worth.”

Whether the stone is marketable means a lot. If Bronstein has a buyer in mind, he will pay more. Argyle also adjusts its estimates based on possible end buyers. If a diamond seems like the kind of a stone a retailer like Harry Winston might sell, that will factor in the estimate (and reserve).

- Who wants them? ..."

http://www.jckonline.com/blogs/cutting- ... 9-30654035

[PinkDiamond]

I'm literally swooning over this one.

3.37-Carat Pinkish Purple Diamond On View at Hong Kong Jewelry Fair

"A fancy intense pinkish purple VS2 diamond will be shown to the public for the first time during the September Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair. The 3.37-carat gem, named the “Purple Orchid,” has an asking price of $4 million, or nearly $1.2 million per carat. ...

Leibish Polnauer, president of Leibish & Co., says it is a “once-in-a-lifetime” find. “There is nothing more unique on the market right now than color diamonds, and this incredible purple diamond is more than a cut above the rest. There are very, very few diamonds on the market above 3 carats with purple as the main color, which is what makes this exquisite diamond so rare.”

There isn’t a lot of documentation on how purple diamonds get their color, but it is believed that it is the combination of crystal lattice distortion (which is also involved in the creation of pink diamonds) and high amounts of hydrogen.

Leibish & Co also views this diamond as a fashion-forward statement as it says the color of the diamond is associated with “Radiant Orchid,” the Pantone color of year for 2014."

http://jewelrynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/ ... amond.html

[PinkDiamond]

Guess the purple one is mine since nobody else said it had the same effect on them.

Maybe y'all will like this one better. This stunning beauty topped the price-per-carat record set last year for all diamonds by a cool million.

9.75 Carat Blue Fetches $3.3 Million a Carat, Sets All-Time Record
By Rob Bates, News Director - Posted on November 21, 2014

"On Nov. 20, a 9.75 ct. fancy vivid blue pear-shape fetched $3.3 million a carat at the Sotheby’s New York auction, setting a new high-water per-carat price for any diamond.

9.75ctBlueDiamond.jpg (15.05 KiB) Viewed 597 times

The Zoe Diamond

That price tops by a full $1 million the per-carat record set just one year ago, when a 14.82 ct. fancy vivid orange scored $2.3 million a carat ($35.3 million total) at a Christie’s Geneva auction.

The stone’s final price—$32.6 million—also set a record for the most expensive blue diamond ever, topping the celebrated Wittelsbach-Graff, which fetched $24.3 million in 2008.

The price was achieved after a frenzied 20 minutes of bidding, with seven prospective buyers. The winner was a Hong Kong collector, who dubbed it the Zoe Diamond. Sotheby’s did not provide further details on why that name was chosen.

The stone came from ..."

http://www.jckonline.com/2014/11/21/975 ... -306540353

[PinkDiamond]

Now this one is sweet, and I'd wear it in a heartbeat.

$5 Million Red Diamond Sets World Auction Record
By Logan Sachon, Social Media Journalist - Posted on November 25, 2014

Courtesy Christie’s

The heart-shape fancy red diamond ring by Moussaieff

"A heart-shape fancy red diamond ring by Moussaieff set a world auction record at Christie’s Hong Kong today.

The 2.09 ct. ring sold for $5,095,872 ($2.44 million per carat) to a private Asian investor.

“Colored stones and colored diamonds were keenly sought by private collectors and members of the international trade at Christie’s Hong Kong,” said Vickie Sek, deputy chairman of Christie’s Asia and director of Christie’s jewelry and jadeite department. “One of the finest red diamonds ever offered for sale achieved a world record price of well over $2 million per carat. It is also the most expensive red diamond ever sold at auction.”

Other highlights from the sale: ..."

http://www.jckonline.com/2014/11/25/5-m ... -306540353

:shock: That's a gorgeous red diamond and love the diamonds in the setting around it. The diamonds look like flower petals.

Yes, I really like that beauty.

[PinkDiamond]

Exceptional Pink to Red Diamonds: A Celebration of the 30th Argyle Diamond Tender
Peer Reviewed Article
Author: John King, James E. Shigley, and Claudia Jannucci

" ABSTRACT

Over the past three decades, more than one thousand pink diamonds from Rio Tinto’s Argyle mine in Western Australia have been offered for sale at annual invitation-only events known as tenders. These diamonds, selected from the mine’s large annual production of rough, are cut and polished at the company’s factory in Perth for the tenders. These diamonds have all been graded by GIA, as their color grade is a crucial value consideration. This article summarizes each year’s collection and presents some pertinent statistical information on color grade and description for this important group of rare colored diamonds.
Diamonds are among the rarest and most valuable of all gems. Those exhibiting noticeable color are rarer still. It is estimated that they make up just 0.01% of the world’s total production (King, 2006). Such diamonds have been celebrated throughout history as defining treasures of nobility and prized possessions of the wealthy. Of all the colors, pink diamonds are among the most alluring and sought after. For much of history they were recovered only sporadically in India, Brazil, Indonesia, and southern Africa (King et al., 2002). Even rarer was the recovery of diamonds described as red or predominantly red, of which only a handful have ever been documented (Shigley and Fritsch, 1993; Wilson, 2014).

The situation changed dramatically in the mid-1980s with the emergence of the Argyle mine, located in a remote region of Western Australia (Smith, 1996; Shigley et al., 2001). Argyle Diamonds Ltd. was formed by the parent company CRA Ltd., later Rio Tinto Ltd., to develop the mine and market the product. This mine became one of the world’s largest sources of diamonds (Bevan and Downes, 2004), including a small production of valuable pink to red stones (figure 1). This limited but consistent supply has intensified interest in these colored diamonds. ..."

Figure 1. A selection of Argyle pink diamonds from the 2007 tender shows a range of color depth. The weights range from 0.66 to 1.74 ct. Photo by Robert Weldon/GIA.


There's a lot more to the story, as well as pics here:
http://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/winter ... ond-tender

I just don't like diamonds, guess your either a colored stone freak like myself, or not. Sorry Pink, I know you LOVE dem diamonds! hehe.

To me, I'd rather have a really nice deep morganite or a rubillite.

Maybe I'm "flawed".....lol

You are not flawed. I don't care for diamonds either. Rather have an emerald any day (or an opal, of course). It's just another personal preference. Though I thought those pink briolette earrings were pretty awesome!

Not a diamond fan either, but you gotta love the colored ones.

One of the allure of colored diamonds over other stones is that they don't get scratched up as easily.

Yes, when I started the thread I could have put 'my favorite: colored diamonds', but I figured the thread wouldn't just be for the colored ones so I left it out, but white diamonds, although lovely, aren't my thing. I've got them in pink, yellow, yellow/green, blue, and blue/green.

Of course, the natural pinks from Argyle are what I covet most, but y'all probably already guessed that.

I ripped out the white diamonds in my wife's engagement ring and replaced them with purple diamonds.
She loves everything purple, hehe.

Love the purples, and actually, now that I think about it, I do have one tiny one I want to put in an earring.

[PinkDiamond]

The Time a Multimillion Dollar Red Diamond Nearly Fell From the Roof of a Luxury Hotel
http://www.jckonline.com/blogs/cutting-remarks/2015/05/13/time-multimillion-dollar-red-diamond-nearly-fell-from-roof-luxury-hotel

Of all the diamonds he’s sold, one of his favorites is the Argyle Cardinal, a 1.21 ct. fancy red from the 2014 Pink Tender.

The Argyle Cardinal

It was during the tender’s first press event. A lot of people were there, and it was a big, exciting event. Someone was holding the stone in tweezers as a photographer tried to get a good shot of it. As diamonds sometimes do, the stone “pinged,” falling to the floor with this great gravity-defying bounce.

The shoot was taking place in this spectacular penthouse cantilevered out off the roof of the hotel with glass floors and floor-to-ceiling windows. I was called to the room, and when I saw where the stone had landed, I didn’t believe my eyes. It had somehow fallen between the smallest of gaps where the floor met the windows and was sitting precariously on a two-inch-wide ledge about a foot down beneath the glass floor! It was less than a quarter-inch from sheer blackness. If it had fallen any further, it would have certainly been lost, down in the inner recess of the hotel or, who knows, potentially the park below.

We then faced the difficulty of trying to recover it without pushing it off the ledge. The hotel offered to tear up the floor but being so close to the edge, even the slightest vibration risked sending it over.

So we settled on a decidedly low-tech approach of some Blu Tack attached to the end of a long ruler. I first did a dry run, navigating the ruler through the gap down to a little piece of something in a similar position about a foot along ledge from Cardinal as a sort of test. It worked, so we went with it.

We had only one shot, and thankfully the story ended well. The stone was recovered unscathed and the tender back on track. My hands never shook so much. It must be the highest-stakes game of Operation ever played.

and for information as to price and such
Four Extremely Rare Red Diamonds Are Now For Sale
http://www.businessinsider.com/extremely-rare-red-diamonds-are-now-for-sale-2014-8

Rio Tinto has unveiled a record four extremely rare "red" diamonds in an exclusive annual sale, with the miner saying there was growing interest in the jewels as collectibles and alternative investments.

The diamond tender, with stones sourced from Rio's Argyle mine in Western Australia, will be comprised of 55 diamonds, including 51 pink and purplish reds and four fancy reds.

The "hero" jewel at the centre of the sale -- in its 30th year -- is the Argyle Cardinal, a 1.21 carat radiant cut fancy red named after a small, northern American bird.

The jewels routinely fetch US$1-2 million a carat. As a basic rule of thumb, pink and red diamonds are worth about 50 times more than white diamonds.

More at the link above..

egads! Talk about nerve wracking!! And drool... those are GORGEOUS!!

[PinkDiamond]

I was curious about this since I thought the blue would be garish, but it's actually very lovely, and the first set of rings is quite attractive, IMHO. In other words, I wouldn't turn them down!

Claude Thibaudeau’s New Glacier Blue Enhanced-Color Diamond Rings
By Jennifer Heebner, Senior Editor - Posted on July 1, 2015

Lovely blue eyes—baby blue to be exact—inspired Claude Thibaudeau of the Montreal-based eponymous firm to make his new proprietary, enhanced blue diamond color that is the star of his new Glacier Blue collection.

“My daughter has blue eyes, my grandmother had blue eyes,” he says. “I have always been attracted to eyes that are sky blue—the right blue for a diamond.”

But it’s that Mediterranean blue—with a lot of green in it—that most of industry knows for enhanced diamonds. That color has a negative effect on Thibaudeau. “It reminds me of a young lady who wears this color of blue contacts…it’s not a nice color,” he observes. “I get scared.”

So he enlisted outside help to develop a proprietary enhanced sky-blue-color diamond that would remind of him of blue eyes but also some of nature’s prettiest natural blue diamonds. After a year of efforts, the process grew tiresome, but he persisted. Also top of mind during this time: the realities of enhanced-color and natural-color diamonds. “When you take a white diamond and try to make it pink, it becomes purple,” says Thibaudeau. “Natural yellow diamonds cost less to buy and with big natural-blue stones we’re talking millions.”

The first stone was ..."

Pics and story here:
http://www.jckonline.com/blogs/style-36 ... -306540353