How much are colored diamonds worth?

Fancy diamonds, the colored ones, are increasingly in demand. But how much are colored diamonds really worth? ♦

Once the most important aspect was purity. The diamonds had to be absolutely transparent and colorless, as well as free from impurities. It is no coincidence that the value of diamonds was, and still is, determined by the “four Cs” (Color, Clarity, Cut, and Carat). If you don’t know what we are talking about, read here. In short, weight and cut, but above all the absence of inclusions or colors. In a few years everything has changed. Now most of the top diamonds sold at auctions are colored, or fancy, as they are called by experts. Many years ago many of these diamonds would have been defined as impure, because the only diamonds considered truly precious were the colorless ones.

Today, however, colored diamonds are skyrocketed, even if not all of them have the same value. Some time ago a 14.82-carat orange diamond was auctioned for over 26 million and Sotheby’s sold the Pink Star, a 59.60-carat pink diamond, for $ 83 million. In addition to the exploit of the auctions, an avalanche of brown, black, gray diamonds and so on have also appeared in jewelry. But the latter have a much lower value than the blue, pink, yellow or red ones (the rarest of all). In a nutshell: not all colored diamonds have the same value. The yellow, pink, blue and red ones are worth more than the brown, black or gray ones.

The color of diamonds is determined by minerals, for example iron, which oxidize and give an unusual hue to the diamond. In short, they are less pure than the colorless ones. But they are rarer. With no other substances in between, the diamond is perfectly transparent. Determining the value of a colored diamond is very complex. As Dominique Dufermont, trader and teacher at the school of Van Cleef & Arpels explained some time ago to the French newspaper Les Echos, to evaluate a colored diamond, several criteria must be taken into account, including obviously the weight and intensity of its color, as well as when cut, which must be perfect. “A pink diamond can be valued even 50 times more than a white one”. The expert gives the example of a bright yellow diamond that went from a valuation of 30,000 euros to 70,000 within two years. Even the brown diamond, which until a few years ago was worth little, today is often ennobled as a cognac color and can reach 2,000 euros per carat if of good quality.

Unlike colorless diamonds, which must be as transparent as possible, fancy ones acquire more value if their color is intense. In short, the nuance of a white diamond, which for example tends to gray or pale yellow, decreases its price. A fancy diamond, on the other hand, the more colorful it is, the more it has a high price. Although there are exceptions: as in colorless diamonds, the fancy diamond is also valued for its purity and transparency.

In fact, however, pure diamonds with bold colors are rare: they come, in fact, mostly from the Argyle mine, in Australia. Even a red diamond was found here, considered a miracle: it is 1.56 carats and has been sold for over 2 million dollars, a figure which is equivalent to 6 million per 1 gram (1 carat is equivalent to 0.2 grams). Large colored diamonds are used by top jewelers: blue, like a Harry Winston ring, yellow like those mounted by Dior, or pink used by Bulgari and De Beers. Tiffany has also focused on colored diamonds. The fancy boom is also due to the increasing demand from emerging countries, from India to China. For now, the charm of these stones shows no signs of diminishing. And it will last a long time.