How Many Are There?

[Opa]

Does anyone know how rare/common colors are? For example, what percentage of diamonds out there are D color, E color, F color, etc? I would assume that since D color diamonds are the most expensive all other things being equal (cut, clarity, carat, etc) they are the rarest. Anybody have any knowledge on this?

Opa

 

[glitterata]

What a good question. I''ve heard that except for fancy colors, the more colorless, the rarer--but is that really true? Can anyone cite a source or supply some statistics?

 

[belle]

you could just do a search and pretty much figure out what the percentage is......

 

[Opa]

Belle,

I tried doing that, but each search yields over 200 diamonds. 200 diamonds is the maximum the search will yield. So I can''t get any information through that approach. I was hoping someone has some statistical information out there.

Opa

 

[belle]

............where are those stats people when you need them!?
i''m sure one will be along sometime, stat people probably keep different hours..........

 

[glitterata]

Anyway, a search won''t tell you how many of which stones come out of the ground (or are in the ground in the first place), just how many pricescope vendors are offering for sale, which probably translates to what they expect people to buy, not what''s available all told. I sometimes search for low colors (M and lower) but rarely find much of any in the PS database; if what we''ve heard is right, there should be tons.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

you can do your own search by each color for a range of colors here on pricescope and post the data

 

[Opa]

I tried to take you up on your idea Garry. But Pricescope limits 200 diamonds per search. So then I went to Bluenile since they were a major on line distributor. Their search engine did not have limits on querries. However, since this is a nicer retailer, I''m not so sure this is representative of the entire market.

They had a total of 32,254 diamonds. Their colors only range from D through J and clarity ranges from FL to SI2. Carats ranged from .23 to 11.88. Price ranged from $337 to $514,236.

D 5,464 15.5%
E 7,624 21.6%
F 8,414 23.9%
G 6,697 19.0%
H 3,531 10.0%
I 2,298 6.5%
J 1,235 3.5%

Not what I expected! I figured the D color would be the rarest. Again, this is a nicer retailer so they will cater to what the public demands. Perhaps the GIA or AGS would probably have better statistics.

Here is the breakdown of color and clarity:

D IF 163 3.0%
VVS1 336 6.1%
VVS2 643 11.8%
VS1 1049 19.2%
VS2 1368 25.0%
SI1 1237 22.6%
SI2 668 12.2%

5464

E IF 189 2.5%
VVS1 518 6.8%
VVS2 817 10.7%
VS1 1379 18.1%
VS2 1959 25.7%
SI1 1745 22.9%
SI2 1017 13.3%

7624

F IF 257 3.1%
VVS1 606 7.2%
VVS2 822 9.8%
VS1 1580 18.8%
VS2 1860 22.1%
SI1 2230 26.5%
SI2 1059 12.6%

8414


G IF 278 4.2%
VVS1 593 8.9%
VVS2 795 11.9%
VS1 1496 22.3%
VS2 1504 22.5%
SI1 1380 20.6%
SI2 651 9.7%

6697


H IF 137 3.9%
VVS1 286 8.1%
VVS2 339 9.6%
VS1 683 19.3%
VS2 729 20.6%
SI1 883 25.0%
SI2 474 13.4%

3531


I IF 81 3.5%
VVS1 155 6.8%
VVS2 221 9.7%
VS1 475 20.8%
VS2 475 20.8%
SI1 582 25.4%
SI2 300 13.1%

2289


J IF 10 0.8%
VVS1 53 4.3%
VVS2 87 7.0%
VS1 278 22.5%
VS2 350 28.3%
SI1 310 25.1%
SI2 147 11.9%

1235

I think I have too much time on my hands! This data makes me question why we pay so much for colorless diamonds with excellent clarity. Accoring to this, a J color SI2 is more rare and should be more expensive, right?

I''m no statistician, but I don''t think this is a truly representative sample. But this is all I''ve got to go on for now. If anyone else has statistical data, I''d love to hear it.

Opa

 

[belle]

wow, good job opa!! you did some work!!!

 

[Opa]

I was able to find another web site that had a diamond search engine. This one had a database of 24,399. These results were similar to those from Blue Nile. Again, shocking to see that the diamonds that are the most expensive aren''t the rarest in the inventories. I know this isn''t necessarily indicative of the true number of diamonds out there, but its intresting nonetheless.

D 2,902 11.9%
E 4,319 17.7%
F 4,514 18.5%
G 4,427 18.1%
H 3,529 14.5%
I 2,442 10.0%
J 1,388 5.7%
K 639 2.6%
L 239 1.0%

24,399

IF 343 1.4%
VVS1 733 3.0%
VVS2 1,382 5.7%
VS1 3,936 16.1%
VS2 5,797 23.8%
SI1 6,193 25.4%
SI2 5,245 21.5%
SI3 770 3.2%

24,399


D IF 84 2.9%
VVS1 119 4.1%
VVS2 203 7.0%
VS1 437 15.1%
VS2 638 22.0%
SI1 761 26.2%
SI2 611 21.1%
SI3 49 1.7%

2,902

E IF 55 1.3%
VVS1 178 4.1%
VVS2 241 5.6%
VS1 667 15.4%
VS2 1,067 24.7%
SI1 1,076 24.9%
SI2 943 21.8%
SI3 92 2.1%

4,319

F IF 71 1.6%
VVS1 140 3.1%
VVS2 267 5.9%
VS1 748 16.6%
VS2 1,096 24.3%
SI1 1,114 24.7%
SI2 938 20.8%
SI3 140 3.1%

4,514

G IF 69 1.6%
VVS1 143 3.2%
VVS2 323 7.3%
VS1 836 18.9%
VS2 1,059 23.9%
SI1 986 22.3%
SI2 874 19.7%
SI3 137 3.1%

4,427

H IF 28 0.8%
VVS1 82 2.3%
VVS2 143 4.1%
VS1 539 15.3%
VS2 742 21.0%
SI1 945 26.8%
SI2 899 25.5%
SI3 151 4.3%

3,529

I IF 20 0.8%
VVS1 38 1.6%
VVS2 87 3.6%
VS1 347 14.2%
VS2 573 23.5%
SI1 728 29.8%
SI2 553 22.6%
SI3 96 3.9%

2,442

J IF 9 0.6%
VVS1 19 1.4%
VVS2 58 4.2%
VS1 216 15.6%
VS2 392 28.2%
SI1 387 27.9%
SI2 268 19.3%
SI3 39 2.8%

1,388

K IF 6 0.9%
VVS1 12 1.9%
VVS2 45 7.0%
VS1 112 17.5%
VS2 176 27.5%
SI1 146 22.8%
SI2 121 18.9%
SI3 21 3.3%

639

L IF 1 0.4%
VVS1 2 0.8%
VVS2 15 6.3%
VS1 34 14.2%
VS2 54 22.6%
SI1 50 20.9%
SI2 38 15.9%
SI3 45 18.8%
239

 

[hoorray]

This is pretty interesting stuff. My first reaction to it is the surprise in the number of higher quality stones. I don''t know enough about the sourcing/distribution of the wholesale market for this industry. Would it be that if you did similar searches of the databses that the mall stores buy from the results would be very different, or are these databases representative of the actual total supply at this point of time?

These searches don''t have a cut criteria, so that would obviously change the spread of real top quality stones. And it doesn''t account for the pre-set stones that you see advertised at H/I color and I1 quality.

Anyone in the know have more insight on this?

 

[Camellia]

If you look at those figures, nearly half of the diamonds in each colour range is VS2 to SI1 in clarity. It would be interesting to know as a percentage of total diamond production/mining, how that clarity ranks. I''m assuming that most of diamonds below SI2 would be industrial grade - am I assuming too much?

 

[Opa]

These were all cuts, all sizes (from .2 to 11 carats). Even I didn''t have the patience to do searches by quality of cut! Also, these web sites did not offer stones below SI3. Obviously inventory is driven by demand. But there appear to be a lot of F VS2 stones out there, so I''m waiting for the clearance sale from all you vendors out there!

Does anyone know if the GIA or AGS would keep these kinds of statistics? Would DeBeers?

My motivation behind all this is that I am looking for a D color stone with VS2 or better clarity. I figured this would be a rare stone in the grand scheme of things and I would like to tell how rare that type of stone would be.

Opa

 

[glitterata]

See--these numbers clearly reflect what the vendors expect to sell, not what nature created deep underground.

 

[bichon]

Opa,

I am by no means a diamond pricing expert (just a girl who got engaged and found out about this site afterwards!) but I found your data interesting. Your search data shows data skewed towards:

- Colour: E-G
- Clarity: SI
- Cut: unknown ... but let's assume skewing towards "Good"
- Carat: unknown ... assume average is 0.7 carats

The obvious conclusion is that all 4 criteria (plus a few other things like fluoresence) affect overall pricing. Therefore, there's a 4 factor matrix to consider.

Then throw in the laws of demand & suppy which dictate:

1) Low supply & high demand = high price
2) Low supply & low demand = low price
3) High supply & low demand = low price
4) High supply & high demand = moderately high price

For diamonds, however, demand isn't the only consideration ... there's also DESIRABILITY of the characteristic of the diamond.  (By desirability, I mean "what would you want if $ was no object") Therefore, while a D coloured, VS1, assuming decent cut & avg carat size, should be relatively less expensive, there is actually a moderate supply of diamonds fitting this highly desirable characteristic, hence the high price.

Then again, there's deBeers ... !

EDITED: An economics professor of mine once mentioned that diamonds are not "rare" at all ...

 

[JohnQuixote]

Searching diamonds available on the internet will only reflect consumer demand.

This picture is skewed since the internet consumer makes more decisions based on statistics. Logically, a preponderance of stones of higher color, clarity and cut grade will be represented here. Consider also that most internet diamonds are lab-graded, while a vast number of diamonds sold on the street are not submitted to a lab. In many cases these are lower color, clarity or poorly cut stones which could be hurt by the paper. These WOOFers will "never see the light of lab!"

The question of rarity in cut quality has been asked before (this link.) I've reproduced Paul Slegers' answer on origins and striation, as it gives great perpective.

p]

Of the remaining 20%, maybe 70% will become round brilliant shapes.

Of this 14%, 70% is rather low in colour, and/or brownish and/or low clarity. In these goods, there is no premium for a nice make, so they will always be cut for weight. Granted, the average quality gets better, but they remain cut for weight. Forget about those.

Of the remaining 4.2%, at least 50% can stay above a magic weight if they are cut to looser standards. This makes them more valuable.

Of the remaining 2.1%, 80% falls in the hands of cutters who have no market for better cuts, thus do not attach any value to it.

So, to look at it in a very positive way, you probably have something like 0.42% left.>>


Paul's quote has to do with ideal/superideal cut rarity, but the first several stats also have to do with color/clarity - I think it's very interesting.

 

[Opa]

John,

Thanks for that link. So if I''m understanding that correctly, out of all the diamonds mined roughly .42% ''ideal'' cut round brilliants.

I agree that internet diamond inventories will be skewed to higher color/clarity since most folks are buying sight unseen. I wasn''t able to find any of the I clarity diamonds that you often see in B&M stores (especially mall ones) so I know the data above isn''t truely representative of the inventory (key word here) jewelers keep. These were also loose stones which takes out of the running all rings with diamonds already set in them.

Do you think it would be fair to apply the above statistics to the .42% remaining ''ideal'' cut diamonds? For example, from the sights I visited, there were 2,006 stones that were D VS2 (randomly picking D VS2) out of 56,653 total stones for a 3.54% of total. So if 3.54% of all diamonds on the internet are D VS2, then this should apply to the % of all Ideal Cuts as well. Therefore, 3.54% of the .42% of ''Ideal'' cut diamonds would be of D color with VS2 clarity. So this would give you roughly .015% of all diamonds on the market are Ideal Cut, D, VS2. Do you agree with the logic?

I think at a minimum this would hold true. Even though like you stated most internet dealers are going to hold an inventory of nicer stones, that would mean worst case scenario the market is offering what my above research yeilded. If you take into account all stones sold in B&M, I would suspect that the percentage of D VS2 Ideal cut stones would be even smaller than .015%. Your thoughts?

Opa