We hear about pink diamonds everywhere. Beautiful pink diamonds that reach rocket high prices on auctions, and the prices just seem to go up and up.
Maybe you have asked yourself, why?
Pink diamonds are a mystery of the earth. Nobody knows why they are pink. Other diamonds get their colour from chemical impurities which absorb the light. Yellow diamonds have traces of nitrogen in them, blue diamond’s contain boron. But nothing like this is found in pink diamonds. Scientists think the beautiful pink colour might be the result of a seismic shock which might have altered the diamonds molecular structure.
‘We have absolutely no idea where the colour comes from, and we will most likely never find out’.
The most beautiful pink diamonds are produced in North West Australia in the Argyle mine, owned by Rio Tinto mining company. It is only 40 years ago, the first pink diamond was found in Australia, and it took the company 10 years to start a mining operation, and start unveiling the beautiful stones from the centre of the earth. Before that time, the only pink diamonds known had a faint pinkish colour. Nothing at all like the saturated pink diamonds from Argyle.
But the pink diamonds from Argyle are so rare, that only a few are produced each year. Argyle makes 90% of the production of pink diamonds worldwide. Yet even though they move tons of earth each year to search for diamonds, you can still hold the yearly production of pink diamonds in one hand. That is how rare they are.
Each year, Argyle produce only 10 pink diamonds of 1 carat, brilliant cut. So no wonder prices are high.
The pink diamonds from Argyle increase minimum 20% in value each year. And the reasons are that:
1. They are very very rare.
2. There is a very high demand. Buyers really want to get their hands on these rare stones. Demand is increasing and supply is reducing, hence prices goes up.
3. Mines are running out. It is estimated that in 2021, there will be no more pink diamonds found in the Argyle mine, or anywhere else.
The argyle mine has moved from above ground operations to underground, and the mine is drying out. And the deeper they dig, the more saturated and colourful are the diamonds, but they also find fewer and fewer.
So how are the pink diamonds sold?
At the Argyle pink diamond tender. Once a year 150 very serious bidders are invited to this event. The top 50-60 diamonds in superb colours, between 0,35 carats and 2 carats, will be traveling to secret locations in Sydney, Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York, London and Geneva. Here the bidders can see the stones, and they will have to give in a written offer by a specific date.
It is very seldom that a buyer will bring home more than 1 or 2 diamonds. The prices are more than 200.000 USD pr. carat, depending on the colour of the diamonds. So these are really the most important diamonds in the world being sold on the Argyle pink diamond tender.
Grading pink diamonds
Pink diamonds are graded on their intensity of colour, not on their clarity.
There are 4 categories of colours for pink diamonds:
Purplish pink
Pink
Pink rose
Pink champagne
But Argyle also produce diamonds of blue violet colours, and the very very expensive red diamonds, which are the rarest and the most expensive diamonds at all.
The colour of pink diamonds is evaluated by the hue, which is the dominant colour, the tone, which is the light or darkness in the diamond and the saturation, which describes the strength of the hue. The saturation is described from faint to extremely rare vivid. And only the finest and most intensively coloured diamonds deserved the description vivid.
Of the pink diamonds the vivid pure purplish pink called 1PP are the most expensive. That’s a good investment in diamonds!