Valued at twenty times the price of a white diamond, pink diamonds are also extremely rare with only 50 or so put out to tender each year.
They have become an investment item and are now considered the most concentrated form of wealth in the international marketplace, says Josephine Archer, spokesperson for Argyle Pink Diamonds.
“We really are talking about the most limited issue product in the world,” she told The Epoch Times.
Ms Archer is preparing for this months Argyle Pink Diamonds Annual Signature Tender, an exclusive market offering that will see two hundred top jewellers, gem traders and investors in the world compete for the rare offering.
Why so Unique?
Argyle pink diamonds make up one tenth of one per cent of the mine’s output. But it is not only their rarity that gives the diamonds their allure.
No one is really sure what gives the diamonds their mysterious colour. Most diamonds gain colour from trace elements in the rock, but pink diamonds do not.
The most popular theory relates to the way the diamonds are formed. Pink diamonds are found in some of the oldest exposed rock in the world and are produced under even greater pressure than white diamonds.
Most geologists now believe the intense pressure changes the structure of the diamond, creating twisting crystal lattices that refract light at the lower end of the rainbow spectrum.
“So you get these delightful pink and violet colours, blues and purples, and even red at the far end of that spectrum, which is one of the rarest colours in nature,” said Ms Archer.
Pink diamonds are also much harder than other diamonds, requiring specialist care to cut.
“You couldn’t just take a white diamond polisher and put him in front of a pink and [expect him] to produce a really beautiful diamond,” she said.
The way colour appears in a pink diamond is “in bands and in zones”, she explained, so a polisher must sit down with each rough to plan and examine how to polish it for the best colour.
“Our polishers really listen to that diamond and produce something unique,” she said, adding, “We virtually sell all of our diamonds on a diamond by diamond basis.”
Diamond Buyers
With complete understatement, the affable Ms Archer describes the clientele for pink diamonds as “a very niche market.”
“They are diamonds that appeal to people who have often completed their repertoire of white diamonds and yellow diamonds and have graduated up to pink diamonds,” she said.
“There is a great appreciation for Argyle pink diamonds in that market despite what has happened in the global economic trends over the last couple of years.
“Some of these diamonds don’t even leave their boxes,” Ms Archer explained. “They sit in safes and are retained as a store of wealth.”
The United States remains the largest diamond market in the world. Europe and Australia are also keen on pink diamonds, but it is the bridal market in Japan, where the colour pink symbolises love, that established a trend for an even more unique product—the heart-shaped pink diamond.
“They were really designed for the Japanese market," Ms Archers said. But the heart shaped pink diamonds have now found appeal in many other markets as well.
Ironically, the company will be offering a rare suite of three identical heart shaped diamonds as the signature of this year’s diamond tender.
“I could count on the one hand the number of times there have been matched diamonds in the tender.
This year we have [three pink diamonds] all in one suite, all with perfect colour and clarity match. It’s really quite an event.”
India also is catching up in the diamond market with famous Indian jeweller Nirav Modi’s Shalimar Ring, a $2 million piece featuring an admired 1.25 carat pink diamond as its centrepiece.
And for those that just cannot make up their minds about whether to keep the Porsche or toss it and take the plunge on a pink diamond, Ms Archer has a warning—don’t sit on the fence for too long.
There are only around a decade’s worth of diamonds left in the Argyle Pink Diamond mine, she said, and with only 50 or so offered each year, that means only around 500 diamonds of that calibre will be available in the world in years to come.
“They are in a class of their own,” Ms Archer said.
The Argyle Pink Diamonds Annual Signature Tender 2011 starts in Perth on Sept. 5 and moves to Hong Kong on Sept. 16.
