Colored diamonds have long been an unrivalled exotic component of the gemstone industry. Existing in natural blue, pink, yellow, and other visually appealing hues, these are predicted by experts to hold considerable demand in the year to come.
Yuri Okoyemov of Alrosa, the world’s biggest diamond mining company, says that colored diamonds appreciate in value no matter how turbulent the times are, or how unstable the world economy gets. “We expect fancy diamonds to become ever more popular investments in the near future,” he said. Alrosa places colored diamonds on auction two times each year. Last year’s “True Colours” auction held in Hong Kong managed to rake in a whopping $9 million selling natural colored diamonds.
Global consultants Knight Frank have tracked colored diamonds as luxury investment assets, which form a definite group with wine, art, cars, and watches. Colored diamonds’ value has gone up by 70% in the past 10 years, which translates to 12% each year. The third quarter of 2018 saw a growth of 0.4%, as shown by research from Israel-based Fancy Color Research Foundation. Their findings show that blue diamonds have managed to consistently outperform diamonds of other colors in terms of sales, having risen 8.5% inside the same duration.
Fancy pink diamonds only rose 0.5% in terms of value in the same quarter, although projections show an approaching shortage in these stones that is bound to bring their value back up at a rapid rate. The Argyle Mine, which is the prime source of such diamonds, is rumored to close by 2020 because it will have run out of a viable diamond supply by then.
Fancy pink diamonds of higher rarity have been setting auction records in recent years. In November last year, the Pink Legacy was bought by Harry Winston for US$50.4 million, at a Christie’s auction in Geneva. That sets the stone’s per-carat price at $2.6 million. The Pink Star sold the year before that for $71.2 million, at a Hong Kong auction held by Sotheby’s. This 59.60-carater is currently the most expensive pink diamond in existence.
Only one out of every 10,000 gem-grade diamonds has color that it possesses as part of its natural origin. Based on the intensity of this, stones can even end up being more valuable than flawless white diamonds on the market. The latter are considered to possess better intrinsic quality.