Fancy colour diamonds

Fancy colour diamonds are clearly divided in two major groups, natural fancy and treated (enhanced) fancy colour diamonds. While the both types discussed here are natural mined diamonds the way they got their colour is different, and this is where the term “natural” is in play for diamonds which were mined with the colour they present. Natural fancy colour diamonds are mentioned here only for the purpose of classification and clarification, since they have little or no commercial value in the South African market. They are simply too expensive and the volatile US$ to ZAR rate doesn’t help either. For my 30 years carrier as a jeweler in South Africa I sold one natural light fancy yellow diamond of 0.72ct. As a rule of thumb the brighter and cleaner the colour the higher the price, meaning very light and very dark stones are at the lower end. So are stones with brown and especially gray overtone.