KNOWING THE BASICS
Fancy coloured diamonds hail from Australia, Brazil, South Africa, India, Canada, Russia, several African nations, and even Borneo. White diamonds are colourless to light yellow, and described based on the industry’s D-to-z colour-grading scale. Beyond Z, the yellow diamonds are considered fancy coloured diamonds, as well as diamonds that display any other colour face up. Although pinks and blues seem to be favourites, red, green, purple and orange are rarer, while colours like brown, black and grey are also fancy colours. The value of white diamonds in the D-to-z range usually decreases as the yellow becomes more obvious, but the opposite is true for fancy coloured diamonds: the more intense the colour, the more valuable. In assessing fancy coloured diamonds, Far East Gem’s Tay says that the standard 4Cs are also used, although the information is interpreted slightly differently. “The rarer the colour, the lower the carat size you would expect. For pinks, you would generally see 0.2 to 0.7 carats, and even then a 0.2-carat pink is impressive. “For white diamonds, you would grade only in the tone of colour (say, lighter or darker shade). In coloured diamonds, you have to look at hue (type of colour), tone (light or dark), saturation (intensity), and primary colour with or without a secondary colour. The purer the colour, the rarer. Colourless diamonds have only one colour grade, for example, G colour. For coloured diamonds, the grading system is more complex; you can potentially see a fancy deep brownish greenish yellow, fancy yellowish greenish grey or fancy grey-blue. A fancy grey-blue looks different from a fancy blue-grey. The highest grade is fancy vivid.” According to Tay, fancy coloureds usually display a poorer clarity as compared with white diamonds due to the sheer rarity of coloured diamond roughs. “It is best to try to buy a diamond that is eye-clean. In general, pink diamonds tend to be more included than a blue diamond.” The last C is Cut, which Tay says affects the colour of the diamond. “Sometimes if the colour of the diamond rough is light, the cutter will make the diamond pavilion deeper, which draws out the colour and therefore improve its colour grade. Rather than searching for a perfect cut, look for a cut that appeals to you—it’s like looking at art.”