Many people think that all diamonds are colorless, and are surprised to learn that diamonds come in a wide variety of colors. In fact, diamonds come in almost any color you can imagine. These diamonds are known as fancy diamonds. Natural fancy diamonds are far more rare and expensive than diamonds in the normal color range. Unlike colorless and near-colorless diamonds which are valued higher for their lack of color, with fancy diamonds it's just the opposite, the more color – the more rare and valuable the diamond. These stones are all about the color intensity.

Many colors, however, are not strong and pure. Vivid fancy color diamonds are extremely rare and very valuable. Rarity has a profound impact on diamond value; this is especially true with color diamonds.

Red, green, purple, and orange, are generally the most rare, followed by pink and blue. Yellows and browns are the most common fancy colors.

The GIA fancy-color diamond grading system describes color objectively by using clearly defined color references. This helps make color identification less subjective than it is with other systems. A descriptive approach like "lemon yellow" or "harvest gold" would make identification more personal or cultural. This would make universal application of the system almost impossible. A color designation can be worth a lot of money, so it needs to be understood and accepted throughout the world.

Although the human eye can differentiate among millions of colors, GIA recognizes just 27 hues for color grading diamonds. This places a practical limit on the number of possible color descriptions and creates terminology that's precise enough for the lab but accessible enough for the marketplace.

Each of the 27 hues represents a range of colors. The hues are arranged on a hue circle, and the boundaries of each range are clearly illustrated and referenced. The hue circle is the first point of reference for all GIA graders when they prepare a color diamond grading report.

The 27 hues consist of basic colors like yellow, blue, and pink, and mixed colors like orangey red, greenish yellow, and grayish blue. In the GIA system the predominant color is stated last. This is because of the significant value attached to certain colors.

The color appearance of a diamond comes from the combined effects of hue, tone, and saturation. GIA uses 9 specific grades to identify the ranges of color appearance.

These grades, accompanied by color terms like pink and blue are used on colored diamond reports. For example: Fancy Deep Blue, or Fancy Intense Greenish Yellow. They play a significant role in determining colored diamond value: the stronger the hue, the more valuable the diamond.

The formation of natural colored diamonds is a process that requires the presence of additional elements and distortions to the typical diamond crystal. During the creation of a diamond, if an element interacts with its carbon atoms, the color can change. Natural radiation and pressure on a diamond’s structure can also intensify its color.

The market for fancy-colored diamonds broadened considerable in the 1980s and 1990s, when the Argyle mines began producing large supplies of brown diamonds. Argyle promoted them with romantic names and accompanied the marketing campaign with prices that made them affordable.

In any size and clarity range, the per-carat prices of fancy-colored diamonds vary widely. The prices depend on the attractiveness of their colors, which depends on a combination of hue, tone, and saturation.

Many fancy colors, particularly brown and yellows, are priced from about 50% to 80% of the per-carat prices for comparable colorless goods. Many brown diamonds are priced even lower. Bright yellowish, orangey, or reddish browns are priced higher than less attractive colors.

A highly saturated yellow diamond costs about the same as a colorless diamond of the same clarity, weight, shape, and cutting quality. Light yellowish greens cost somewhat less.

Natural, deep, medium greens rarely appear in the market. When they do, their prices are high. Prices for light fancy blues are often a little higher than for colorless goods. For deeper shades, the prices jump dramatically. Bluish gray stones cost about 80% to 100% or more of the price of colorless stones.

Of all the commercially available colors, fancy pinks and pink-purples attract top dollar. In April 1989, a 3.14-ct. Fancy Intense purplish pink diamond sold for more than $400,000 per carat.

In pricing fancy colors, a rich, pleasing color tends to offset mediocre clarity grades and proportion variations. In fact, in valuable colors, diamonds are often cut into unusual shapes and proportions to maximize weight retention from irregular rough. Fancy-colored diamonds of comparable color, quality, and size also show a wider price variation from dealer to dealer, compared to stones in the normal color range.

Colored diamonds are more popular than ever, and it's important for you to be familiar with the dazzling variety of diamond colors that exist. Designers are always looking for new ways to use diamonds of all colors. One result of this is that black diamonds, which were once considered suitable only for industrial use, now appear in fashionable and affordable jewelry.

You might think that some colors are so rare that you'll never see them. But the diamonds supply is constantly changing. No one could have predicted the regular output of beautiful pink from the Argyle mines. Perhaps a new source will yield another extremely rare color and take the market by surprise. With your color diamond knowledge, you'll be well prepared, no matter what happens.

Public awareness of colored diamonds has increased since the 1980s. That's when the Argyle mine in Australia began marketing its brown stones under trade names like "Champagne" and "Cognac". Argyle reached its goal of making the public more aware of fancy colored diamonds and dropped its campaign in the late 1990s. Today, the Argyle mine still produces brown diamonds, but it's more famous as the world's major source of pink diamonds.

Spectacular prices in high-profile auctions ar another factor in the increased awareness of fancy-colored diamonds. In November of 1995, at Sotheby's, Geneva, a Cartier ring containing a 7.37ct Fancy Intense purplish pink diamond sold for $6,011,894 – a price that amounted to about $815,725 per carat.

In the same year, Christie's sold a Boucheron 4.37ct Fancy Deep blue oval cut diamond ring for $2,485,398 or $568,740 per carat. For the sake of comparison, a giant – extremely rare – 100.10ct D color, Internally flawless, pear-shaped diamond was sold by Sotheby's in 1995 for $16,548,750 about $165,322 per carat.

Not all fancy colored diamonds command such high prices. At Romancing Diamonds we bring them to you directly at a fraction of the retail price.

Rough Weight: 110.50 carats
Modern Cut Weight: 45.52 carats
Shape: Cushion
Color: Fancy Deep Grayish Blue
Clarity: VS1

The Hope is one of the world's most famous fancy blue diamonds. Today, it's on display at the Smithsonian institution in Washington, D.C. The history of the diamond that's today known as the Hope goes back to mid-seventeenth century India, when Jean Baptist Tavernier bought a sapphire-blue diamond and named it the Tavernier Blue. In 1669, he sold the stone to Louis XIV, France's Sun King. It became known as the Blue Diamond of the Crown and remained with the royal family until 1792.

The diamond later surfaced in London, where Henry Philip Hope bought it sometime before 1839 and gave it his family name. The stone stayed with the Hopes until 1901. It then took two side trips to owners in Turkey and Paris.

In Paris, Pierre Cartier tried to enhance the diamond's appeal. He used fictional tales and exaggerated stories to create the Hope's famous "curse", which implied that bad luck followed anyone who owned it.

The diamond crossed the Atlantic to America in 1911, where Evalyn Walsh McLean bought it for $180,000. Having been treated royally for over two centuries, the Hope got something less than deep respect from the flamboyant McLean. She kept it in a shoebox and often lent it to friends to wear, including her Great Dane, Mike.

McLean died in 1947 and willed the Hope to her heirs, who sold it in 1949 to pay debts and claims against the estate. Harry Winston bought the Hope, along with McLean's other jewelry, for about $1.3 million. In 1958, Winston donated the diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where it's still on public display and said to be the museum's most popular attraction.

Diamonds with reddish colors are extremely rare and highly valued. They range from delicate pinks to reddish purples, and include pink-purples, orangey reds, purplish reds, and more. Pure pinks are more popular than diamonds that are purplish, orangey, brownish, or grayish. Some trade professionals market very attractive stones in this category as "rose-color" and some stones with purplish tints as "mauve" diamonds. Pink diamonds were extremely rare before Australia's Argyle mine began producing them in 1985. The GIA Gem Trade Laboratory graded the first batch of about 150 as Fancy pinks. Argyle sells its pink diamonds at an annual sale that's a much-anticipated event in the trade. The color in pink diamonds is due to graining in the diamond crystal. The amount of the color depends on the amount of this so-called "pink graining." Distortion of the crystal lattice might also produce red diamond colors. Pure orange-with no hint of brown-is probably diamond's rarest color. Orange diamonds are so rare those scientists aren’t exactly sure what causes their extraordinary color. But it's most likely the result of a combination of chemical impurities and structural distortion.

Blue diamonds are also extremely rare. They generally have a slight hint of gray, so they're never as highly saturated as blue sapphires. GIA GTL graded the Hope diamond, perhaps the most famous diamond in the world, as Fancy Deep grayish blue. The color of most natural blue diamonds is caused by the presence of boron impurities-the more boron, the deeper the blue. The boron also makes them effective conductors of electricity. In the early 1990's, some blue diamonds were discovered that lacked boron. Scientists assume that their blue color is caused by natural radiation that was present when they were formed. Very rarely, a grayish blue color is caused by hydrogen.

Fancy green diamonds are typically light in tone and low in saturation. Their color often appears muted, with a grayish or brownish cast. The hue is generally in the yellowish green category. The hue is confined mostly to the surface, and rarely extends through the entire stone. That's why cutters try to leave as much of the natural rough around the girdle as possible. Green Diamonds get their color when radiation displaces atoms from their normal positions in the crystal lattice. This can happen naturally when diamond deposits lie near radioactive rocks, or as a result of treatment by irradiation. Naturally colored green diamonds are extremely rare. Because of their rarity and the very real possibility of treatment, green diamonds are always regarded with suspicion and examined carefully. Even advanced gemological testing can't always determine color origin in green diamonds.

Brown is the most common fancy diamond color and also the earliest to be used in jewelry. The Romans set brown diamonds in rings around the second century. But in Modern times, they took some time to become popular. Brown diamonds were typically considered industrial quality until the 1980s, when abundant quantities of them began to appear in the production of the Argyle mines. The Australians fashioned them and set them in jewelry. They gave them names like "cognac" and "champagne." The marketing worked, and brown diamonds are found in many medium-priced jewelry designs today. Internal parallel grain lines cause the brown color in diamonds. If the brown grain lines exist in a diamond that's also colored yellow by nitrogen impurities, they produce a brownish yellow color. Brown diamonds range in tone from very light to very dark. Consumers generally prefer brown diamonds in medium to dark tones with a warm, golden to reddish appearance. They generally show a hint of greenish, yellowish, orangey, or reddish modifying colors. Often, what's perceived as brown is really orange or yellow with saturation that's so low that it disguises the hue. The color looks yellowish brown or orangey brown instead. Colors called "khaki" or "olice" are more of a greenish yellow disguised by low saturation.

Yellow is diamond's second most common fancy color. Yellow diamonds are sometimes marketed as "canary." While this isn't a proper grading term, it's commonly used in the trade to describe fine, fancy yellow diamonds. As you've learned, most yellow color in diamonds is related to the presence of nitrogen. A few brownish yellow diamonds have been found to contain hydrogen-related defects.

The most famous black diamond is the 67.50-ct. Black Orlov. Most, however, end up as industrial grit, since they tend to be heavily knotted crystals or a lumpy aggregate that's almost impossible to cut. Until the late 1990s, there was not much demand for black diamonds. But designers started using them in jewelry, especially contrasted with colorless melee in pave settings. and they began to gain popularity. Fancy white diamonds also exist. They have a milky white color that's caused by submicroscopic inclusions that scatter light. Sometimes white diamonds are cut to display opalescent flashes of color. There are also gray diamonds. Most of them have high hydrogen content, which probably causes their odor.