Red, the timeless color of devotion, ardor, and sensuality. In a diamond, this color is so elusive that it is indeed the rarest of all fancy colored diamonds. Pure red is so rare that the GIA has not graded any red diamond spanning the years 1957 to 1987. It is also said that there are only about 30 pure red diamonds to have been mined in the world.
The source of the color of red diamonds is the same as that of purple, pink and brown diamonds, which is ‘plastic deformation’, a process that occurs at the time of formation of the diamond.
The largest producer of these diamonds was the now-closed Argyle Mine of Australia, also the source of 90% of the world’s pink and other naturally colored diamonds. In the last 30 years of its operational period it is supposed to have produced only about 20 carats of these fancy red diamonds. There is no known replacement mine from which to extract red diamonds, and so they are now even more rare!
The ‘Moussaieff Red’ is the largest fancy red diamond weighing 5.11 carats worth over $20 million
Loose Red Diamonds
