Purple Diamonds

About Natural Purple Diamonds:

Purple diamonds are so rare that even celebrities having a hard time to get their hands on one. The former NBA superstar and Los Angeles Lakers player Kobe Bryant purchased an eight carat Purple diamond ring worth $4 million.

A new source of natural Purple diamonds had been found in 2008 a group of companies Metalex Ventures, Dianor Resources  and Wemindgi Exploration announced that they were be able to source 649 diamonds from Quebec's James Bay region in Canada including nine Purple stones.

Fancy Purple diamonds obtain their color by the same process that Pink Diamonds and Red diamonds experience: post-growth plastic deformation, or mutation of the atomic lattice, that likely unfolded as the diamonds made their way from the depths of the earth to its exterior. However, the precise composition of the defects that give purple diamonds their distinct color is still not entirely clear. A distinguishing characteristic of natural Purple diamonds is the pronounced presence of parallel deformation lamellae, or graining, where the purple coloration is concentrated. Therefore, the purple coloration may visibly vary in strength based on either a parallel or perpendicular orientation of the diamond when being viewed.

Color Intensity:

Just Like every other natural color diamond fancy purple diamonds are assessed according to intensity of color, or a combination of saturation and tone. The following describe purple diamond intensities:

Light Purple, Fancy Light Purple, Fancy Purple, Fancy Intense Purple, Fancy Deep Purple, and Fancy Vivid Purple.

The further along this spectrum you go, the richer and more intense the purple is to be seen in the diamond. The more intense a diamond’s color saturation, the more it will be worth. For example, a Fancy Intense Purple diamond will be worth more than a Fancy Purple diamond. That said, apart from very saturated pure purples, stones that are a split grade containing an equally, if not more, rare color, such as Fancy Red-Purple, are among the most desirable and valuable types of natural purple diamonds.

Secondary Color Modifiers:

A colored diamond is generally rare when it exists as one color without any additional modifying colors. The only instances that color in fancy purple diamonds experience even greater rarity and value than if such diamonds were to have just its primary color of purple are when the primary purple color is combined with equally, if not more, rare colors such as red. A “fancy red purple” will therefore be even rarer and more valuable than a color diamond that has only purple in a comparable saturation.

Purple diamonds can be modified by pink, red, grey and brown. It is more common for purple to be found as a secondary color modifier, such as a diamond graded Fancy Purplish Pink, than for it to be the dominant color in a diamond that is modified by another color.