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September 11, 2018
The largest fancy deep purplish-pink diamond ever graded by the Gemological Institute of America will headline Alrosa’s first-ever “True Colour” auction of colored polished diamonds. The 11.06-carat, cushion-cut gem is one of 250 colorful diamonds that Alrosa will display at the Hong Kong Gem & Jewelry Fair, which opens on Wednesday.
The Russian mining company is looking to make a big play in the polished colored diamond market, which is currently dominated by rivals Rio Tinto and De Beers. The diamonds in this first True Colour offering demonstrate Alrosa’s cutting and polishing prowess, as well as its breadth of selection.
Among the colors represented in the collection are purple, pink, orange and vivid yellow. In fact, Alrosa has begun sorting its colored rough diamonds into 19 color groups.
Other hero stones of the first “True Colour” auction will be a 15.11-carat oval fancy vivid orangy yellow diamond and an 11.19-carat cushion-cut fancy vivid yellow.
“It took more than a year to prepare the collection,” noted Alrosa deputy CEO Yury Okoemov. “It is a masterpiece of diamond production created by skillful professionals who put heart into their work, keep the traditions and know what a real ‘Russian cut’ is.”
Alrosa will be selling the True Colour collection via its online platform and is planning to hold colored diamond auctions once or twice each year.
Although Alrosa did not estimate what the top diamonds in the True Colour collection could be worth, recent auction results reflect a strong demand for fancy colored diamonds.
In fact, a 59.6-carat, flawless, fancy vivid pink diamond shattered the world record for the highest price ever paid for any gem at auction in April of 2017. The Pink Star fetched $71.2 million at Sotheby’s Magnificent Jewels and Jadeite sale in Hong Kong.
It is believed that pink and red diamonds get their rich color from a molecular structure distortion that occurs as the diamond crystal forms in the earth’s crust. By contrast, other colored diamonds get their color from trace elements, such as boron (yielding a blue diamond) or nitrogen (yielding yellow), in their chemical composition.
Credits: Images courtesy of Alrosa.
