Fancy Colour Diamonds
Yellow, pink, blue, and beyond — how fancy colour diamonds are graded, what drives their value, and how they differ from white diamonds.
Traditionally, diamonds are known to be colourless or to fall somewhere within the D-to-Z colour range of faint yellow or brown. Fancy-colour diamonds, however, sit entirely outside this range. They can be brown, yellow, red, pink, blue, green, or virtually any other colour in the spectrum. Any diamond with a noticeable hue — whether in light tone and saturation or deeply concentrated — is considered a fancy-colour diamond.
Rare and valuable, a coloured diamond will create a treasured heirloom for generations to come.
Grading Fancy-Colour Diamonds
Grading a fancy-colour diamond is extremely complex and can only be performed by specialised laboratory graders. The system used is the GIA grading system, which accounts for the fact that different coloured diamonds have different colour depths. Blue diamonds, for example, have a more limited range of saturation, while yellow diamonds have a broader spectrum.
What Determines Value
Some fancy-colour diamonds are far rarer than others, and rarity drives value. With white diamonds in the D-to-Z range, colourless stones are the most prized because they are the scarcest. With fancy colours, the dynamic is different: saturated greens, blues and pinks are the rarest and therefore the most expensive.
Fancy pink and yellow diamonds also command very high values. Diamonds with blue, green and red hues in light, moderate or extreme saturations are considered scarce and are priced accordingly. Pricing also considers clarity, carat weight and the quality of the cut.
Fancy Pink Diamonds
Fancy pink diamonds are among the rarest diamond types in the world. The pink colour has an alluring quality that elevates romance to another level. The vibrancy and intensity of fancy pink diamonds are simply unique, and the colour is widely associated with femininity, grace and love.
The Argyle mine in Australia was the only mine in the world that produced a consistent volume of pink diamonds. Its closure has made these stones even rarer and more sought-after by collectors and connoisseurs alike.