Fancy and Coloured Diamonds

The most famous diamonds in the world are coloured, or fancy, diamonds. The Tiffany Diamond, which is yellow, and the Hope Diamond which is blue, are coloured diamonds. Coloured diamonds vary from red, green, purple, violet, orange, blue and pink – and most shades between. Fancy colour shades vary from faint to intense.

Treated and Synthetic Diamonds
Fancy coloured diamonds are all the rage these days. Gemologists have developed new ways to create versions that are affordable for the average person - by treating less desirable diamonds. These less desirable diamonds are treated with irradiation followed by intense heat. This turns brown and yellowish diamonds into beautifully coloured diamonds that you can afford. This produces stunning greens, blues, yellows, reds, purples and other colours. These colours are considered permanent, but there is a possibility they could change during repairs if a high heat is used.

Treatments like irradiation make it possible for more people to own these vividly coloured diamonds. Most natural coloured diamonds are rare and also extremely expensive. When shopping for coloured diamonds you need to assume that any affordable fancy colour diamond has been treated. Ask about the stone's origin and request to view a lab certificate to verify authenticity.

Synthetic coloured diamonds are another option if owning a coloured diamond is something you desire but cannot quite afford. They are real diamonds, but they are created in a lab.

Natural Diamonds
Natural fancy colour diamonds get their colouring from different trace elements present in the stones, such as nitrogen, which produces a yellow diamond. Diamonds can be coloured by exposure to radiation during its creation. An example of a diamond affected by radiation is the green coloured diamond.

Another way that a natural coloured diamond gets colour is by its inclusions. Regarded as flaws and undesirable in a colourless diamond, inclusions give unique tones and brilliant flashes of colour in a fancy colour diamond. Remember that natural fancy coloured diamonds are very expensive, any coloured diamond labeled to be sold as natural should be accompanied by a certificate from a respected grading lab.

Coloured diamonds have an amazing financial track record. The value has never decreased on wholesale level in more than 30 years. Blue and pink diamonds have doubled every 5 years of a strong economy. In the 1970’s you could have bought a very high quality blue diamond for about 50K and today the very same stone would be worth between 2 and 3 million.

No comments:

Post a Comment