Fancy colour diamonds – natural and irradiated

Irradiated fancy blue diamond

While the white diamonds are quite well classified, when it comes to the ones with colour the information is scarce and blurred. The famous 4C’s doesn’t apply well there and the pricing is rather obscure. Some natural intense colours are so rare that the only price indication is the prices they fetched at auctions. My focus however will be on the irradiated stones since the marked for the pricey “naturals” is very small around the world and almost non existing in South Africa.

Both types of colour diamonds discussed in this article are natural mined stones. The difference is that the “natural fancies” come from earth the same colour as the final product while the irradiated ones have their colour enhanced. The process used to enhance them in the lab is pretty much the same as the process the “natural fancies” got their colour from in the depths of earth – through radiation. While the naturals are extremely rare, especially in intense colour clear of grey or brown overtones, for enhancement are selected stones which are already with an overtone or tinted, which translates to a low-cost starting material. Stones with grey overtone for example are enhanced to blue while the yellowish tinted ones to bright yellow, green or red. For clean of overtone pinks are used stones which are relatively white, while yellowish starting stones will yield peach pink colour.

How big is the difference in the price? It is enormous, especially when it comes to extremely rare blue or red variety. As you can see the difference is more than 100 times for bigger blue stones and about 4-5 times for an average size yellow diamond. Stones over a carat in some clean colours are exceptionally rare and the prices are just an object of speculation. For example, the highest price per carat was fetched for a vivid red round stone, under a carat. It was sold for over one million dollars.

So, are the fancy colour diamonds affordable. I would say yes, the irradiate type is priced more or less as tinted white (K-L) untreated diamonds. If she likes colour and want to be different that is a very good choice. Contact us for availability and obligation free quote.

Price comparing table

Natural fancy yellow diamond	Irradiated fancy yellow diamond
Natural fancy blue diamond	Irradiated fancy blue diamond