Is Fancy Vivid Yellow the Yellow ?

[Cave Keeper]

I''ve been searching for yellow stones and have been looking at yellow jade, yellow common opal, amber, citrine, yellow precious topaz, yellow zircon, yellow sapphire, and yellow diamonds.

The range of yellows is vast, but is Fancy Vivid Yellow the kind of pure Yellow to look for? By pure Yellow, I mean something like Schoolbus Yellow, or that found in this article http://www.diamondscultured.com/education.aspx .

 

[valeria101]

Well, about diamonds for some 'L' is yellow allright

And if it is the color you are after, this is sapphire...

And diamonds...

Strong color might happen for citrine, but more likely in the irradiated 'lemmon quartz'. See this.

A few more yellows are to be found here - more mundane, this time

And, well, what can I say, in any material the color is what makes some pieces rare and valuable - so if you are looking for the preffereed shade every time it is not going to be easy or cheap finding the right piece.

It just so happens that diamonds are the nly with a popular grading system attached so you can say 'fancy vivid' about them and juts 'yellow' abou the others which is not so precise anymore...

Btw, the same shop carries some interesting yellow beryl and that can get very yellow, like this one:

IMO, sapphire gets the most merit from color, but diamonds look great even if pale because of all that brilliance. Actually, there is no standard for me, some pieces look pleasant some not. Only afterwards I might give it a thought along the lines of ... 'well, so why did you like that one exactly?' The best part are the good surprises, so it is not as satisfying to start asking that kind of question before meeting the subject.

IMO, unless you know some specialized jewelers on the ground, the chances to locate anything top color are slim. And for some reason one needs to reject ten silly offers and see the price hike before even being offered something matching the initial requirement. I can understand the usefullness of the practice, but it still goes above and beyond my patience.

Your post makes me think that this is what happened to you... but that one post is all I have to look at, of course.

Hope some of this helps.

Richard Wise's book pleads the case allot nicer. Do you have it ?

 

[Sagebrush]

"Fancy vivid yellow" when used on a GIA diamond grading report is a technical grading term that describes a visually pure yellow diamond with exceptional saturation.

There are, as Ana has illustrated a number of yellow stones that can occur in more or less a pure yellow hue.

"School bus yellow" strikes me as an orangy-yellow or really an almost "international orange" diamonds, sapphires and others come in orangy-yellow as well.

 

[Cave Keeper]

Thanks, Val101, for all the links. Must have spent two hours or more admiring all those stones at those sites. Well, Val101, my layman''s mind is still trying to evolve up the ladder, but many thanks for giving me a hand every now and then with your extremely helpful tips, images and useful links.

Richard, it''s the orange part I''m trying to avoid. Perhaps I should call the color I probably want ''Fancy Vivid Canary Yellow''? Or, do you think once I add the word ''Vivid'', the color becomes pretty solid and non-transparent (close to Schoolbus Yellow) and no longer like the color of that particular bird?

 

[valeria101]

Date: 8/26/2005 11:29:43 AM
Author: Cave Keeper

I probably want 'Fancy Vivid Canary Yellow'? Or, do you think once I add the word 'Vivid'

Surely like the 'sport' of Pricescope posting too, so you are most welcome

I would not mention birds at all. What you want is just very strong saturation - the hard to get thing, that is. And yeah, when there is allot of color, one can argue that the material looks less crystaline. I am not sure this is always the case or even technically correct in any way. More likely there is some observation bias: the fact is that some haze (texture of sorts) or even scattered inclusions give the impresison of stronger color - so perhaps some of the best colors one might encounter at any given time would not have perfect clarity. Since slight clarity issues also discount the price of top color, the chance to see those and not a compbination of perfect clarity and strong color grown more likely still.

Say, treated or lab made diamonds are accused of being hazy. Perhaps some are, but the very strong color of these things does help that impression as well. Some sapphire comes with a haze of silk inside and that surely helps colro be more aparent. All in all, transparent media is not as good at showing color as opaque or translucent materials. The slightly translucent sapphires are eve famous for this.

Just IMO

Some time ago I found a pretty good discussion of color and transparency somewhere online (on a topic about color refference sets) bu can't remember where exactly and my refference links are ont on this computer...

 

[Sagebrush]

Ana,

Have you got Stephen Hofer''s book? Has a great chapter on color theory. Makes the point that transparent media are capable of a higher degree of saturation than opaque.

Your point about transluceny in very interesting. It would seem that despite the amount of color in a thing (saturation) it would stand to reason that reducing the transparency would make that color more apparent. Please send me the link if you find it.

 

[Cave Keeper]

Is the fancy vivid canary yellow we''re looking for the Lego brick yellow?