Fancy Colour Diamonds: Understanding Coloured Diamonds

What are fancy colour diamonds?

Most diamonds fall within the colourless to light yellow range, which is graded on the traditional D to Z colour scale.

Fancy colour diamonds fall outside of this scale. Instead of having little or no colour, these diamonds display strong, distinctive hues.

Unlike traditional white diamonds that are valued for their lack of colour, fancy colour diamonds are prized for the depth, richness and distribution of their colour.

How fancy colour diamonds are valued

When assessing fancy colour diamonds, the intensity and consistency of colour is the most important factor.

While characteristics such as clarity and cut still contribute to the overall appearance of the diamond, they are usually less influential than colour. This is because the strength of the colour can naturally mask small inclusions or imperfections.

In general, the more intense and vibrant the colour, the more valuable the diamond is likely to be.

Fancy colour diamond grading

Fancy colour diamonds are graded using a classification system that describes the strength of the colour.

The commonly used colour intensity grades include:

Faint

Very Light

Light

Fancy Light

Fancy

Fancy Intense

Fancy Vivid

Fancy Deep

Fancy Dark

Diamonds graded Fancy Intense or Fancy Vivid are typically among the most valuable because of their strong and highly saturated colour.

How rare fancy colour diamonds are

Fancy colour diamonds are exceptionally rare.

It is estimated that only around 1 in every 10,000 diamonds discovered will qualify as a fancy colour diamond.

Among fancy coloured diamonds, yellow diamonds are the most common, accounting for roughly 60% of all fancy coloured stones.

Yellow diamonds develop their colour due to the presence of nitrogen atoms within the diamond’s structure during its formation.