the second 'C' or Color

 COLOR


Diamonds are found in all sorts of earth tones from silvery gray to black or ecru to brown.  There are also fancy colors like attractive shades of yellow, pink, lavender, purple, blue, orange and red.  There are plenty of variations as a nice pure yellow or blue may have grayish or brownish influences and anything else you can imagine.


Color of a stone is graded from D to ...well whatever E, F, G.....  I have never seen anything that would be whiter than a D.  

The closer to a pure white(colorless) the more expensive it will be...UNTIL it grades far enough from the white to become attractive to the eye.  A slight brownish tinge to the stone may become a very attractive champagne or a beautiful brown.  An off-color yellow in a stone eventually becomes dark enough to become an attractive canary or lemon yellow, gold or whatever shade you can imagine.  I have seen some yellow diamonds that look like nothing less than hardened dog urine...can you tell my opinion of these?  If you buy these, consider the possibility that you may have to resell them to someone and consider what they might think of the color. I suppose that many people are just dazzled by the romance of owning a yellow diamond no matter what it resembles. 


There is no hard and fast rule as to what point that off color becomes a fancy color.  You may find a color attractive that an appraiser will say is a flaw.

The color is good if it is nice and rich, or nice pale pastels but as soon as it becomes dark and difficult to see through you have lost it.

A too pale yellow stone may be set in yellow gold and the color will be intensified, or in white gold to brighten it and show that it IS yellow.


The desirability of a color can change with fashion and also with sharp advertising by a company that is trying to get rid of off-color stones.


Yellow and pink can get expensive as can green, lavender and a number of other shades.


When you get to a nice blue, you can get into real financial trouble. Some blues can be very grey blue or vivid blue like a cornflower, a summer sky or a soft periwinkle.    


Then there is RED... some reds are expensive, (they can get into maroons and browns in red stones, and I have no use for them.) but when you get into a fancy vivid red...be prepared to sell the Rolls Royce and maybe one of your mansions.


I used to know a member of the family that owned the famous Black Orloff Diamond...a monster, and any large stone like that is valuable...even if the color makes you feel like you want to crush it up and use the shards to polish metal, they are expensive.  

But...I have no use for black diamonds.

Low quality diamonds full of carbon, cracks etc., are used for industrial purposes such as abrasives, cutting disks and polishing.  I suppose that black stones could provide a good accent to other colors in a mass or using them like black beads on a dress, but I have the same idea about their value as I do for people selling the puppies from a bad romance between your Spaniel and your Poodle as Cocker-Poos.  They may be a nice dog and all, but I find the high value suspect.


Try laying a diamond on a sheet of typing paper (I know that is an obsolete term) to help you judge the color.  There are also blocks of some unknown material that jewelers have available to help you judge the color by eye. (This works best with loose stones that you plan to have set.)  Once the stone is set, the metal ALWAYS influences the color of the stone.  If you are working with a reputable jeweler, you can usually trust the color that they assign to the stones when they are selling them. You could return to them with an appraisal that disputes their color judgement and that would not be good for their reputation.




Sometimes it is not pleasing to look at a cluster of stones and see one or two that do not quite match. You pay a premium for a piece of jewelry that has well matched stones.  It is well worth the cost because if YOU see the problem, your friends will see it too.


There are colors that come from radioactive irradiation of stones as well...it is good to be able to have the colors, but do not think of it as an asset to own any stone that is altered from the natural color as it comes from the ground.  Even a poor color is better than an altered color.


Diamonds are mostly formed by volcanic activity and usually come from PIPES which are the lava roots of ancient volcanoes.  Diamonds are, after all, just very pure carbon...the same stuff as in pencil lead. They simply undergo immense heat and pressure to force the molecules into their very orderly crystal form.  In the earth, they may naturally pick up radioactive traces that may make a stone glow in UV light, but also trace chemicals in the formation of the stones make the unusual colors. Vanadium, Boron, Uranium and many others can influence the color. 


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