While many buying tips apply to all diamond types, they vary among the different colours. Since natural pink diamonds are among the rarest and most expensive stones, you need to consider many important factors to make a good investment. Let’s go into details and see how to buy a pink diamond.
How to Choose the Colour of Pink Diamonds
Many lab analysis has shown that the pink colouration is caused by physical abnormalities and chemical impurities within the diamond. There is a theory that the stress experienced by rough diamonds when they are in the Earth’s mantle causes the diamond’s lattice to distort which creates graining and pink zones in a stone. However, the origin of the pink colour in diamonds is still covered with mystery.
Pink diamonds are classified using the following colour grades: Faint Pink, Very Light Pink, Light Pink, Fancy Light Pink, Fancy Pink, Fancy Intense Pink, Fancy Vivid Pink, Fancy Dark Pink, and Fancy Deep Pink. The secondary colour is also included in the grade if it is present, for example, Fancy Purplish Pink.
The colour evaluation of pink diamonds has three main components: hue, saturation and tone.
Hue
Hue is the visible colour of a diamond and the primary hue of pink diamonds is pink.
The presence or absence of secondary hues greatly affects the value of stones.
Natural pink diamonds with no secondary hues are extremely rare and pricy. Secondary hues that enhance the primary hue add the value, whereas secondary hues that detract from the primary one usually diminish the price.
The most common secondary hues are purple, brown, orange and yellow, the last two undertones being less desirable.
Saturation
Saturation refers to the intensity of the colour.
As a general rule, the more saturated the colour of a diamond, the more valuable it is. That is why the diamonds that have deep pink colour are more expensive than those with faint colour.
The most expensive pink diamonds display colour close to red.
Tone
Tone refers to how light or dark the colour is.
The choice of the tone depends on your personal preference, however, the stones that are too light or too dark are not that sought after.
How to Choose the Clarity of Pink Diamonds
The clarity of pink diamonds is graded the same way as that of colourless stones.
Of course, high clarity pink diamonds are more expensive but this characteristic is not that important because the flaws tend to be less visible due to the stone’s pink colouring. Low clarity pink diamonds are just as stunning to the naked eye.
Pink diamonds in the SI1-SI2 clarity range may look eye clean and do not offer a visible difference compared with diamonds in VS or VVS range.
How to Choose the Cut of Pink Diamonds
The cut quality of pink diamonds, and all fancy-coloured diamonds in general, is not graded the same way as it is for colourless stones.
Unlike colourless diamonds, fancy-coloured diamonds are not cut to maximize brilliance and sparkle. These characteristics are considered to be secondary. Coloured diamonds are cut to maximize colour intensity.
So when choosing a pink diamond, you should focus more on the stones hue, saturation and tone, and do not judge the diamond using traditional cut grades.
Pink Diamonds and Carat Weight
Pink diamonds are rare and expensive as a result. Bigger pink diamonds are even rarer and cost disproportionally more per carat.
For example, four decades ago Fancy Light Pink diamond cost $10,000 per carat, while in 2017 the estimated price per carat was $220,000.
Vivid Pink diamonds were sold for $50,000 per carat 40 years ago, while in 2014 the price was already $600,000 per carat.
So as you might guess, pink diamonds are for the super-rich. For those who want to buy a pink diamond as an investment, this is ‘heaven’ since Fancy Light Pink diamonds alone has seen a 15% annual increase in the last decade.
Cover image credit: Christie’s
