Rare Fancy Colored Diamonds
Fancy colored diamonds are the most rare diamonds available. Yellow diamonds are mesmerizing and symbolize knowledge, cheerfulness, light, and prosperity. They are sure to capture your eye (and everyone around you) when sparkling in the sunshine.
What makes a Yellow Diamond
Not all yellow diamonds are considered ‘fancy yellow’, an industry term related to the colors beyond the classic white diamond grading scale.
D-F are completely colorless, G-I are very slightly yellow, and J-L are lightly yellow – you barely notice the yellow hues when looking at these face up when mounted. The colors from M-Z simply have a little more yellow color to them.
When a diamond has more yellow than appears on the grading scale, they’re considered ‘fancy’ and adhere to a completely different level of grading. They’re rarer, and as pricing quickly indicates, more costly. As you enter the range of fancy yellow diamonds, the color is distinctly more recognizable; as you reach the highest grades (fancy intense and fancy vivid), they appear as rich as a beautifully ripe lemon.
Celebrities with Yellow Diamonds
From Heidi Klum and Jessica Alba to Carrie Underwood and Megan Fox, a host of Hollywood celebrities have been spotted wearing eye-catching yellow diamonds. And then there’s ‘Isadora’, worn by Kate Hudson in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Yes, it was an actual yellow diamond necklace, 87-carats at that worth 5 million dollars. It is estimated that there was about 14.2M worth of jewelry used for that movie.
In May 2014, the Graff vivid yellow, weighing in at a whopping 100.09 carats, fetched $16.3 million at Sotheby’s. Another famous yellow-hued gem is this Tiffany ‘Bird on a Rock’ piece, one of the largest yellow diamonds discovered in 1878, at Kimberley mine in South Africa. Cut into a cushion shape of 128.54 carats, over the years it’s been worn by Audrey Hepburn and Lady Gaga.
Hillary Clinton was seen wearing a 4.23-carat yellow diamond on various occasions, while Jennifer Lopez received a vintage style 8-carat canary ring from Marc Anthony. According to online reports, the latter was estimated at $300,000.
But probably the most well-known is the 24-carat engagement ring Paris Hilton received from billionaire Paris Latsis. Buzz around the web speculates the huge jewel was worth about $5 million dollars when he proposed back in 2005.
One of my favorite celebrity stories with a yellow canary diamond comes from Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley's engagement. They were out on a yacht and somehow her canary diamond ring goes overboard - most likely during an argument but some say it was just rough seas. Nicolas hired divers to find her ring but it was gone forever. He replaced it with an even bigger and higher quality ring shortly after. Their marriage lasted a little over three months. A whirlwind of romance!
L'incomparable Diamond
The owner of Lux USA, David Leavitt, brokered once sold the incomparable diamond as just the stone. It was 890 carats.
That egg-sized jewel is the 4th largest rough diamond ever found and the largest yellow-brown diamond on the planet. It was turned into L’Incomparable, the most expensive necklace in the world at $55 million, according to Forbes and the Guinness Book of World Records. It is the largest, internally flawless diamond.
*Photo from the Jewelry Editor
Lux USA is one of the few premier jeweler's selling yellow diamonds. Only 1/10,000 carats of diamonds mind is a fancy yellow "canary" diamond. You can view our full feature on yellow diamonds on James Edition by clicking this link https://www.jamesedition.com/stories/jewelry/how-much-are-fancy-yellow-diamonds/