Colored Origin Report

[vetenks]

Hi!

It's been a long time since I last post, but your input and advice will as always be insightful & helpful!

Anyway to the point, basically I bought a 2+ct colored diamond on a whim (& risk!) without any independent report. To ease my mind it was natural colored diamond I had it sent to GIA for grading and it was graded as 'BROWN-YELLOW'. I was basically wondering if there is an order when its comes to chosing which color goes first on the report, i.e they consider it to be more brown than yellow if the color brown is first? or if its just alphabetical etc. To be honest it looks more yellow than brown so I was just curious to know?

Thanks again!

Also would you of recommended a full grading report as I know the colour origin does not include a clarity grade not to mention symmetry, polish, cut etc?

 

[yssie]

Hi!

It's been a long time since I last post, but your input and advice will as always be insightful & helpful!

Anyway to the point, basically I bought a 2+ct colored diamond on a whim (& risk!) without any independent report. To ease my mind it was natural colored diamond I had it sent to GIA for grading and it was graded as 'BROWN-YELLOW'. I was basically wondering if there is an order when its comes to chosing which color goes first on the report, i.e they consider it to be more brown than yellow if the color brown is first? or if its just alphabetical etc. To be honest it looks more yellow than brown so I was just curious to know?

Thanks again!

Also would you of recommended a full grading report as I know the colour origin does not include a clarity grade not to mention symmetry, polish, cut etc?

There is! In fact there's a whole wealth of info on coloured stones - turns out the way GIA labels it is actually *very* important! Short answer - Yellow is the "primary colour", and brown is just the "modifier" - and it's worth more than the other way round.

Check out these threads, the original questions are a bit different but there's lots of good info if you skim the posts:
[URL='https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/will-gia-grade-a-diamond-fancy-intense-brown.156442/']https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/will-gia-grade-a-diamond-fancy-intense-brown.156442/[/URL]
[URL='https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/pros-what-is-even-color-distribution.156686/?hilit=hue']https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/pros-what-is-even-color-distribution.156686/?hilit=hue[/URL]
[URL='https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/question-about-yellow-diamonds.159621/']https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/question-about-yellow-diamonds.159621/[/URL]

 

[kenny]

The relative amount of brown and yellow in diamonds can vary.

Here is GIA's order of the 6 possible hue-combinations from pure yellow (the most costly) to pure brown (the least costly).

Yellow
Brownish Yellow (brown is the minor hue modifier of a yellow diamond)
Brown Yellow (brown is the hue major of a yellow diamond)
Yellow Brown (yellow is the hue major modifier of a brown diamond)
Yellowish Brown (yellow is the minor hue modifier of a brown diamond)
Brown

Even though GIA has only 6 grades I've heard that vendors split up each grade into several sub grades and price each diamond accordingly - more yellow being more costly and more brown being less costly.

This is just the hue; saturation and tone are separate things.
GIA has established 9 grades, for saturation and tone.
To see how they are related see the chart in my next post.

Faint
Very Light
Light
Fancy Light
Fancy
Fancy Intense
Fancy Vivid
Fancy Deep
Fancy Dark

The price peaks at Fancy Vivid

 

[kenny]

Next, after hue (or combination of hues) GIA describes FCDs by tone and saturation.

Saturation is the strength of the color, but tone is how dark (in a Black and white sense) the diamond is.
This usually takes a little thinking and experience viewing various FCDs to really understand the relationship between saturation and tone.
It is easy to mistake strong tone for strong color saturation and vice versa.

Fancy Vivid is so expensive because it has maximum color saturation without too much darkness.
Supposedly nature is most stingy when supplying us with diamonds in this grade.



You can also pay $321 for a full GIA report, called COLORED DIAMOND GRADING REPORT on any FCD over 0.15 ct.
In addition to the information you get on the COLORED DIAMOND IDENTIFICATION AND ORIGIN REPORT you get grades for clarity, florescensce, Depth and Table %, Polish, Symmetry, top and bottom inclusion plots and descriptions of the exact type of inclusions.
Here is the fee for the GIA reports:

Here is the link:
http://www.gia.edu/lab-reports-services/fees_payment/lab_fees/LAB_feeschedule_Diamond_USD_0211%20(2).pdf

I'd love to see pics of your diamond.
What shape is it?

I have 10 FCDs, but the average size is only 0.22 ct.

 

[vetenks]

The relative amount of brown and yellow in diamonds can vary.

Here is GIA's order of the 6 possible hue-combinations from pure yellow (the most costly) to pure brown (the least costly).

Yellow
Brownish Yellow (brown is the minor hue modifier of a yellow diamond)
Brown Yellow (brown is the hue major of a yellow diamond)
Yellow Brown (yellow is the hue major modifier of a brown diamond)
Yellowish Brown (yellow is the minor hue modifier of a brown diamond)
Brown

Even though GIA has only 6 grades I've heard that vendors split up each grade into several sub grades and price each diamond accordingly - more yellow being more costly and more brown being less costly.

This is just the hue; saturation and tone are separate things.
GIA has established 9 grades, for saturation and tone.
To see how they are related see the chart in my next post.

Faint
Very Light
Light
Fancy Light
Fancy
Fancy Intense
Fancy Vivid
Fancy Deep
Fancy Dark

The price peaks at Fancy Vivid

Hi Both! Thanks for your information again, as always its very helpful!

Its pleasing to know that 'Brown'Yellow' means that yellow is the primary color as I thought that it was more yellow. Anyway I have taken pictures but I apologise for the bad images, it is pretty dark in my flat and with my rubbish camera everytime I used the flash I couldn't get an image, so I used the non-flash but the images are dark and not very good in the image than in person. FYI the diamond is 2.35ct and is RB cut.

Anyway..., checked the 'measurements' on the report and calculated the depth as fairly steep, presumably to retain as much ct weight as possible as I am aware that this is fairly common with fancy cut diamonds due to the price it can demand. Also I know that cut takes more of a backseat after color as the main priority.

Yeah I kind of wish I went for the full grading report for the extra circa $80USD (which is peanuts really) but at time just wanted to confirm is was natural and the color. I was told it is VS2 but I won't know that for sure now unless I get it appraised. It seems that traders potentials could go for an origin report if they wish to 'hide' certain aspects that would be revealed in a full report?

Not sure if I got a good price on this or not (certainly took some risk buying it that's for sure) so I would be interested to know what sort of value this normally retails for? If you can't answer this or its very speculative then that is okay, and thanks for help

ps I imagine all 10 of your FCD are beuatiful though regardless of the ct weight

 

[vetenks]

If it helps the color distibution is 'even' but the 'yellow' is strongest on the table and crown which obviously is the most ideal place to have it. Was a little concerned that distribution wouldn't be considered even due to the pavillion set but I believe that GIA grades this catergory based on the top face up side.

 

[vetenks]

Would anyone know roughly this diamond is valued? Want to know if I was ripped off or not

 

[kenny]

If it was a white diamond it would be easy to just look up prices of similar ones.
Colored diamonds are more rare in the marketplace so you can't just go find a similar one to compare the price to.

(While, in nature, brown diamonds may actually be more plentiful than white ones, brown is more rare than white in the gem marketplace.)

You can get some idea by checking the websites of vendors who sell FCDs and publish prices.
Here are two.

www.fancydiamonds.net
http://www.langerman-diamonds.com

Look under the categories for brown, champagne and yellow.

 

[Rockdiamond]

Hi vetenks,
fancy colored diamonds are very difficult to photograph, but is what I'm seeing that the stone is a little bit dull?

It might just be the photo or it might be reality. If the stone is a little dull, it decimates the value.
If the stone is a little dull, an Internet price would probably be around $5000 (or less, depending on how dull it is ) for two carat diamond. If it's nice and shiny, the starting price would probably be around $9000. Of course, this could go much higher if the color contained orange, for example

 

[vetenks]

Hi vetenks,
fancy colored diamonds are very difficult to photograph, but is what I'm seeing that the stone is a little bit dull?

It might just be the photo or it might be reality. If the stone is a little dull, it decimates the value.
If the stone is a little dull, an Internet price would probably be around $5000 (or less, depending on how dull it is ) for two carat diamond. If it's nice and shiny, the starting price would probably be around $9000. Of course, this could go much higher if the color contained orange, for example

Yeah its not a great photo. Perhaps should of invested the extra $50USD on a digital photo on the GIA report. I will try and take another picture at a later time in some sunlight and give it some justic, its more yellow in reality than the pictures suggest.

Thanks for the pricing, based on everything taken and factoring a few assumptions I think the price I paid in the end wasn't too bad. Does clarity have much of an impact on price in FCDs?

Thanks again

 

[kenny]

Does clarity have much of an impact on price in FCDs?

Clarity affects price of FCDs much less than it does with white diamonds.
Again determining exactly how much clarity affect price in FCDs would require lots of FCDs that are otherwise identical, with the only difference being their clarity.
That's not going to happen since FCDs of matching color are rare.

About the lighting and photography, actually direct sunlight is not the lighting that will best describe the diamond color or transparency.
A very cloudy day would be much better.
You want the most soft, even, diffuse, directionless lighting you can get.

What would be ideal is something like a white translucent light box made of thin cloth or plastic, with one hole in it for the camera lens.
This can be placed outside to get lots of light or you can put lights all around it.

Such lighting lets you see into the diamond without its body color being hidden by overly bright and dark areas, which will be the result in sunlight.

 

[Rockdiamond]

Hi Vetenks,
Clarity certainly can have an effect on value of Fancy Colored Diamonds.
It's not a "direct" as in colorless or near colorless in some cases.
For example-say we're comparing two vivid yellow one carat stones.
One has a weak color, close to intense, and it's a VVS1.
The other is a super strong canary yellow- much more saturated than Intense, and it's an SI1, it could conceivably be worth double the VVS stone.
But that does not mean clarity plays no role in pricing. If both Vivid Yellow stones had equal saturation, the VVS1 would most likely be worth more than the SI1

If we're talking about dullness- what I was concerned about in the photo you posted- then the impact on value is huge.

I have not seen enough GIA photos to know if they are good or not.....
Can you refresh my memory- what did you pay for the diamond?