Studying the color issues on diamonds, anyone would say that the less color in a diamond the better. This is true but only up to a point. Slight traces of color can be annoying and detract from a diamond's beauty and value. But when the color is intense it turns into an asset and becomes a “fancy color”.

The value of fancy colored diamonds is a matter of the purity and richness of the color. In naturally colored diamonds, color is a result of the substitution of different main group elements for carbon. For example, nitrogen substitution leads o yellowing or greening of a diamond, small amounts of boron in the structure of a diamond will result into a blue coloration.

Yellow is the most commonly-occurring fancy color. Red and green diamonds are extremely rare to find. Colored diamonds are truly rare: To find one-carat of a fancy color diamond, you need to cut 10,000 carats of diamonds. A purplish-pink diamond is very rare. The Argyle mine in Australia is the best source for fancy colored diamonds.
Colored diamonds are much rarer than colorless diamonds, hence their special value.

The price of fancy colored diamonds is dependent on several factors:

• the particular hue or spectral color of the diamond (the rarer the color, the greater the cost)
• the richness or saturation of the color (ranging from very light to light to intense to vivid)
• the purity of the color (i.e. whether the color is bright and clear, or “muddied” by the presence of other color-causing trace elements)

Colored diamonds are becoming increasingly popular and this heightens their prestige. Prices of certain colored diamonds during the past thirty years have doubled every 5 years.
Their consistently rising value is making them all the more coveted. For some people, a colored diamond is not only an object to be possessed and admired, but also a source of comfort at a time when precious metals, commodities, and even the world's stock markets have become less reliable protections against inflation and other erosions of capital.

Things to Mind

• When buying fancy colored diamonds, increased attention should be paid, as most natural colored diamonds are expensive and out of the reach of most buyers — by all means they must be accompanied by a certificate from a respected grading lab.
• Any attempt to sell fancy colored diamond for a bargain price should be seriously questioned.
• Artificially-induced fancy colors are affordable but they should not be considered an investment. Ask the jeweler for care instructions when you buy an irradiated fancy color diamond.

Diamonds abound at Jewelry Television™.Browse our wide selection of diamond rings today.