Next month, Christie’s, the famous British auction house, is hoping to make history by auctioning the largest (19cts!), finest pink diamond ever seen in its 251-year history. The sale, which takes place in Geneva, is set to give the pink diamond family more sparkle than it has already.
Everything we need to know as the largest ever pink diamond goes to auction
Expert Andrew Brown, founder of WP Diamonds a leading purchaser of diamonds, fine jewellery and luxury watches, says: “Pink diamonds are always a popular choice, but when one this beautiful goes to auction it always attracts more interest.
“A Fancy Vivid Pink diamond like the one we’ll see sold (hopefully!) next month will be viewed as the ultimate prize for collectors. They will bid high in order to attain one of the best coloured diamonds available in the world.”
Pink diamonds are admired amongst an impressive line-up of celebrities including Margot Robbie, Blake Lively and Jennifer Lopez (who reportedly gave her precious stone back to Ben Affleck when they split).
But what do we need to know about pink diamonds? Expert Andrew Brown tells us:
Why choose a pink diamond?
Natural pink diamonds are among the rarest stones, tracking closely behind red and blue as the rarest diamond colour. They are only found in a small number of mines around the world and most comes from one mine, Argyle in Australia, which looks like it will close down in the next few years! This rarity makes a pink diamond an extremely valuable addition to an investment portfolio for diamond buyers.
As you can imagine, this comes with a price tag. Pink diamonds are one of the most expensive stones you can buy so it’s unsurprising that we usually see them on the hands of royalty or A-list celebrities!
How much does a pink diamond cost?
A lot! As with most diamonds, the price depends on the carat size. However, colour saturation is a HUGE factor as well. A 1 carat (ct) fancy pink diamond might retail for around £125,000-150,000, while a 1ct fancy vivid pink diamond could easily retail for more than £500,000-600,000.
It’s reported that Blake Lively’s engagement ring, a light pink oval cut 12ct diamond, cost fiancé Ryan Reynolds in the region of $2m.
What makes pink diamonds pink?
Truthfully, it’s a mystery! We know that diamonds are coloured through the introduction of a foreign element to the carbon structure of the diamond. Blue diamonds have a trace of boron and green diamonds have been naturally treated at some point in their life by radiation. However, we simply do not know what makes pink diamonds pink. We will one day, but the scientists are still trying to figure that out.
What should we look for in a pink diamond?
It’s all about the colour. The greater the saturation (i.e. the more intense the colour), the better.
A coloured diamond is graded in order of its increasing colour strength from Faint, Very Light, Light, Fancy Light and Fancy through to Fancy Intense, Fancy Vivid, Fancy Dark and Fancy Deep. A Fancy Vivid colour, such as the one being auctioned next month is as good as it gets. Extremely rare.
To show the scale of stone colour and its price, if you take the ring David Beckham reportedly gifted Victoria with on her 30th birthday, that was a 12ct “pink champagne” colour – probably a fancy brownish pink – which held a value of around £800,000. But nothing compared to the Fancy Vivid Pink diamond being auctioned next month, which is set to sell for around £38m!
My personal preference is a purple pink diamond. The purple adds a deeper purple or reddish tint to the pink, as opposed to the generally more favourably viewed straight pink colour.
What should we avoid if we’re thinking of buying a pink diamond?
Look out for brown tints as this can diminish the value of the stone. Generally speaking, the key is to look for an unmodified purple pink, purplish pink or pink colour graded by The Gemological Institute of America (GIA), a non-profit institute dedicated to research and education in the field of gemmology and the jewellery arts.
Do pink diamonds hold their value more than other
Pink diamonds are extremely rare, so hold their value extremely well, as do blue, red, green and purple diamonds.
Argyle, the largest diamond producer in the world by volume, is set to close its mine by 2020 after more than 20 years in operation. This means that the rarity and scarcity value of pink diamonds SHOULD increase and for people lucky enough to own a pink diamond, the next couple of years is the time to consider selling.
You know the Wall Street moniker: “Sell on the rumour, buy on the news!?!
