the price of absolute rarity

Pink diamonds are the rarest of all colored diamonds. It is estimated that only one diamond in 100,000 mined can be classified as pink.

And only a handful of these can be classified as Fancy Intense or Fancy Vivid color. This and the enthusiasm of collectors and celebrities for the pink stone explain why the prices of pink diamonds have recently soared to break all records at auctions.

Deep pink rough diamond extracted from the Argyle mine in Australia, owned by Rio Tinto.

The color shades of the pink diamond

The color of a pink diamond can vary in intensity, greatly influencing the value of the stone. The more pronounced the pink color, the more expensive the stone will be. In the case of pink diamonds, color is the most important criterion that influences its price, more important above all than the estimate of its degree of purity.

Photo showing the color intensity scale of the pink diamond (photo source).

Naturally, the pink color can also vary in tone, ranging from purple to brown and orange, so the range of colors assumed by pink diamonds is very vast as this vision shows:

A color with mysterious origins

This may surprise you, but scientists are still not sure they fully understand the origin of the pink diamond color. If the blue diamond owes its color to the boron atoms present in its atomic structure, the pink diamond appears to get its color from the constraints imposed on its atomic structure during the formation of the crystal.

It is the extreme conditions of temperature and pressure of its environment that induce plastic deformations in the carbon crystal, causing the absorption of certain wavelengths, and therefore influencing the color of the light transmitted by the diamond.

The conditions necessary for its formation are so rare that diamond mines that allow the discovery of pink diamonds are extremely rare. In fact, 90% of the world’s production of pink diamonds comes from the Argyle mine located in Australia.

Australia’s Argyle mine produces 90% of the world’s pink diamonds

Particularity of the pink diamond, its hardness

Due to its particular formation mechanism, the pink diamond is more difficult to work than classic white diamonds. So much so that it takes 3 to 4 times longer to polish them than other diamonds.

Pink diamond mounted on his polishing tools

The price of the pink diamond breaks all records

At both Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctions, pink diamonds almost every time break auction records:

• In 2009, the Vivid pink of 5 carats had been sold at auction for 10.7 million dollars
• In 2010 the Graff Pink, a 24.78-carat pink diamond, sold for $46 million.
• In October 2014, an 8.41-carat Fancy Vivid pink diamond sold for $17.78 million, or more than $2.1 million per carat

Being by its nature extremely rare and fashionable among stars, the pink diamond has recently become an investment for some investors, driving up the prices of the gemstone.

Although it is very difficult to give a general price for a carat of natural pink diamond, we can however see that it exceeds 15,000 euros per carat depending on the intensity of the pink color and the clarity of the diamond, as shown in the following sheet:

Treated pink diamonds

Given their rarity and the public’s enthusiasm for these stones, there are artificial treatment methods to enhance the color of pink diamonds to make them more intense.

These treatments are specified in the diamond grading report and allow you to purchase pink diamonds at a much lower price than their natural, untreated equivalent.

Famous pink diamonds

THE’historic pink diamond is an 8.72-carat Fancy Vivid Pink that belonged to Napoleon I’s granddaughter, Princess Mathilde. The stone is believed to come from the Golconda mine in India.

THE Pink Graff it is a 24.78 carat Fancy Intense Pink VVS2 that appeared in the 1950s and of which little is known about the stone’s origins.

THE Princely diamond it is a 34.65 carat Fancy Intense Pink VS2 from the Golconda mine in India, it is one of the largest and most beautiful pink diamonds in the world.

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