I’ve been nosing around ebay, and spotted quite a few auctions for orange, yellow, black, blue, or teal diamonds. They’re fairly inexpensive and some of the are actually kind of nifty. For example:
Obviously, some colored diamonds are more in demand than others, as I also spotted a green one that was currently listed at over $600.
So what gives? I have a thing for rocks and gems and pretty sparkly things. Am I better off buying a super-sized jar of rhinestones? What makes colored diamonds desirable or not-so-desirable?
In the IGA diamond rating system, the more colorless and free of impurities a stone is, the mosre rare, therefore, expensive. Colored diamonds are still diamonds, they just aren’t as highly sought after, since the colors come from chemical impurities. Yellow diamonds and pink ones have been used to make jewelry for years, and some of it’s quite expensive indeed.
If you like the sparkly things, then by all means indulge, but be careful. Some stones can be treated for color, or the color can be added in synthetics. If all you want is sparkly stuff that isn’t plastic, get some Austrian crystals. I would be very wary of buying loose stones online. If you do decide to purchase them , ask for certification.
Most of the colored diamonds that you see out there are irradiated. Many jewelry stores sell them at a rather high price, but if you ever try to resell one, you’ll find out that they aren’t valued highly by the resale market.
As to “champagne” diamonds, you pay a strong price retail for a diamond which, when you take it to a reseller, it merely is a yellow-brown diamond. And worth very little, as such.
“Champagne” diamonds are currently being promoted. So fashion comes into play.
There are “genuine” naturally occurring colored diamonds out there, but few and far between.
If I’m not mistaken, natural blue diamonds are EXTREMELY rare, and very valuable. They’re also considered to be unlucky-the Hope Diamond is a good example.
<crosses “Bid on Hope Diamond” off eBay TO DO list>
So maybe the gold, champagne, and other snazzy-named brownish ones are natural (and would be low in value, if they were not purposely promoted), whereas the orange, green, and other colors might be “enhanced”? Very interesting. Thanks for the input!
Most diamonds are black, and are industrial diamonds. Of gemstone quality diamonds they range in color, with less color usually being more desireable. A “D” is considered as clear or colorless as they get, with E, F & G being of acceptable color for your sweetie. The alphabit goes on with respect to color, usually meaning more brown.
Fancy diamonds have natural color (we are talking only natural diamonds here with natural color). They can be wildly expensive. Someone already mentioned the the Hope as a blue diamond. It is deep blue due to trace amounts of beryllium impurities. There are also green diamonds, caused by radiation. The Smithsonian as an example of this called The Dresden Green. Usually colored diamonds have pale tints, but the most common is yellow, sometimes called “champange”. This is not the same as the letter scale and a crappy yellowish brown. Champange or yellow diamonds go all the way to canary yellow in color, and the deep yellow ones are very desirable. Pinkish diamonds are not that hard to find, but deep red are among the most expensive diamonds in the world: there are five. Nowadays even black diamonds are being cut as gemstones, and can be quite striking, but they aren’t that valuable.
Diamond, as you probably know, is carbon. While sold by jewelers as the most precious of gemstones, it is really a semi-precious gem. Its value is propped up because the vast majority of the market in cut diamonds has been cornered by DeBeers, an outfit out of London that is apparently not subject to American anti-trust laws. It is a monopoly that works because they control so much of the supply and their only competitors are quite willing to take advantage of the inflated value they give their product.
When buying diamonds, you are looking for cut, clarity, carat weight, and color, not in that order (IANAJ). Do not buy from people that advertise on TV a lot, do not buy from somebody who doesn’t have a regular business in your town. Buy from a certified gemologist whom you trust. Like the look of the stone.
Sorry for the hijack, but are large, good-quality synthetic diamonds now available? I would think that the prices for diamonds ought to be coming down, with the advent of synthetics.
Never heard of Hearts on Fire. Probably advertising, but that is just a guess.
I don’t know whether synthetics are getting more available, I understand the colors are not desireable, and most people want natural stones. For example, sapphires and emeralds of all varieties are easily made artificial and of superior quality to that found in nature, but the natural ones are still far more expensive, especially rubies (the red version of sapphire). Alexandrite, unobtainable naturally anymore, is wildly expensive for natural stone. Perfectly good artificial stones are available for a few bucks. My friend the jeweler sold a three stone Alexandrite broach (about 6 carats total by my estimation) for a quarter million. Same broach with fake stones would have gone for less than $1000 and nine-tenths of that would have been the gold setting.
The prices of diamonds have dropped as Israeli cutters are currently motivated sellers undercutting the market prices DeBeers has established. There are some excellent deals out there if you find the right jeweler.
There is a NOVA program from 2000 (which my PBS station is rerunning this week) called “The Diamond Deception” that addresses the issue of synthetic diamonds. Apparently they are getting very, very close to being indistinguishable from the natural ones, but DeBeers is trying frantically to find ways of differentiating their product.
Synthetics are regularly used in industry, but it still takes too long to grow gem quality ones to have a significant impact on the market.
Moissanite is not synthetic diamond – it’s Silicon Carbide which is lab grown as gemstones.
About 20 feet away from the Hope diamond at the Smithsonian (which, if you’ve never been, has the best freaking gemstone and rock and mineral collection in the World), there is a blood-red perfect diamond, about 10-20 or so carats in weight (I think) that is said to be the “only one viewable by the public” in the entire World.
And it is phenomenally stunning. I would take it over the Hope any day.
The prices have dropped over the last two years because the world is in a deflationary mode. It’s all tied to the recession that is going on in the US and elsewhere. Everybody is a motivated seller.
I dispute the fact that there are some excellent deals out there. The markup on a diamond in a retail setting is so high, you will still pay 3 times wholesale cost. It’s a fashion item, much like women’s clothes, namebrand watches and handbags, etc. To me a deal is something that I get at cost plus 10%. That ain’t the diamond industry.
You need to go to the Argyle diamond mine in North-Western Australia. That is THE place to get high-quality coloured diamonds. If you can get a high-clarity pink diamond with few faults, you are really lucky!
I was fortunate enough to work with Argyle diamonds for a year when I was in university, and was able to tour the Argyle diamond “factory” (for want of a better word…its where the diamonds were sent and polished). It was an amazing experience.
I think SamClem is right, the mark up is tremendous. If the DeBeers cartel is broken, most gemstone quality diamonds will drop substantially in price. But I do think the top quality ones will continue to command high prices, but we are talking about $25k and up
Moissanites are actually brighter than diamonds, however IIRC they tend to have a slight grey-greenish cast to them.
We had a long thread a while back on the “true” value of diamonds - and it emerged that without price-ramping by De Beers, and their fairly dishonest marketing campaigns, diamonds wouldn’t be worth that much more than any other stone, and possibly less than some other stones. In terms of rarity value - unlike gold, which holds its price because there is a fairly limited amount in the world - diamonds just aren’t that special. They’re nice and sparkly but that’s it.