Do you see any brown, gray or yellow in this green?

[kenny]

Yes, I realize we cant grade from pics but just based on these 2 pics . . .

 

[T L]

Re: Do you see any brown gray or yellow in this green?

I see mostly grey and then yellow.

. . . and when you have yellow and grey, guess what color that makes?

However, for a colored diamond, it's nice. I would expect that in an FCD, and take the stone gladly, not so much in any other gemstone.

 

[acebruin]

yes! brown... as we know a lot of green diamonds get their colors from brown patches...

 

[kenny]

yes! brown... as we know a lot of green diamonds get their colors from brown patches...

Thanks all.

I believe that's not the case.
Green does not actually "come from" brown.
Both are the result of radiation, brown on the skin and green on the inside.

A few brown patches of the skin are left unpolished (in the naturals) because that's where GIA analyzes the brown radiation stains to differentiate between natural and man-made green color.
Somehow it holds the clue to whether the radiation was present for millions of years (natural) or the blink of an eye (man-made).

I understand often green rough will be submitted more than once during the polishing so GIA can track the origin better, but still some skin us usually left on greens.
I'm certainly no expert and there may be exceptions, but I thin every GIA Green report mentions naturals and brown patches.
If you find one with no naturals or brown mentioned in comments perhaps that's a green that was submitted during polishing.

 

[innerkitten]

I see grey and green. I see some yellow but it looks kind of like a reflection or something.

 

[chamois]

I like it, the cut and shape are nice. I do see some grey and yellow, I think it may be one of those stones you'd need to see IRL.

 

[tyty333]

I see green/gray/yellow... I like it. Order it and see how it looks in person!....I'm such a good enabler!

 

[acebruin]

there are brown patches and green patches...

and yes most green diamonds get their color from the patches... i've seen a couple of fancy greens that don't have colored patches and are graded natural by GIA...

i agree most of naturally graded green diamonds are submitted multiple times during the cutting and polishing process nowadays to ensure the natural origin... i also think if those patches are polished from the diamonds, most of the green diamonds will be less "green"... read article here http://www.dianajarrett.com/articles/Green_Diamonds.pdf ...

if ALL / MOST of green diamonds have a green body color, then i would think they would polish out those natural skins since they're submitted multiple times during the cutting and polishing process... then most of the green diamonds out there will not have "brown / green patches not shown" on their GIA reports... wouldn't you think? but that's not the case... it is rare to find natural green body colored diamonds... here's one... http://www.fancycolordiamond.net/search/fancy_colored_diamond_details.cfm?id=140FG

 

[kenny]

there are brown patches and green patches...

and yes most green diamonds get their color from the patches... i've seen a couple of fancy greens that don't have colored patches and are graded natural by GIA...

i agree most of naturally graded green diamonds are submitted multiple times during the cutting and polishing process nowadays to ensure the natural origin... i also think if those patches are polished from the diamonds, most of the green diamonds will be less "green"... read article here http://www.dianajarrett.com/articles/Green_Diamonds.pdf ...

if ALL / MOST of green diamonds have a green body color, then i would think they would polish out those natural skins since they're submitted multiple times during the cutting and polishing process... then most of the green diamonds out there will not have "brown / green patches not shown" on their GIA reports... wouldn't you think? but that's not the case... it is rare to find natural green body colored diamonds... here's one... http://www.fancycolordiamond.net/search/fancy_colored_diamond_details.cfm?id=140FG

Thanks for the informative links.
I am a sponge when it come to info on FCDs and especially natural greens; I have a vested interest because I dropped some change on one.

I bought this 0.26 ct Green round diamond from Leibish & Co., the vendor mentioned in the last paragraph of your Rapaport link.
GIA grades it a natural mined diamond with Fancy Intense Green color of natural origin, no hue modifiers and VS2.



Here is a pic I took of one of the brown radiation stains in a large ugly natural on the girdle:



For the life of me I can't image how all that green color comes from a couple little "patches" of brown on the girdle, or patches of green anywhere for that matter.
I also cannot imagine how its VS2 inclusions plotted below result in all that green color either.
I can't find any patches of green in my diamond.
I'm not saying patches don't exist in some greens, I have seen some uneven zoning in greens, even one for $250,000.
I just think I got a nice one one with even green body color, which is the result of radiation.

 

[kenny]

Acebruin, one source of FCD info I have is Stephen C. Hofer's 742-page book, Collecting and Classifying Coloured Diamonds.

http://www.amazon.com/Collecting-Classifying-Coloured-Diamonds-Illustrated/dp/0965941019/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307067538&sr=8-1-fkmr0

There are sections dedicated to each color.
I just carefully reread the section on green.

The most relevant thing to this discussion,the origin of the green color, appears on pg. 406 . . .

 

[acebruin]

You do indeed have a very nice one. I've been drooling over it even before you got into fancy colored diamonds.

I'm not saying every green diamonds with patches get the color from the patches. I think if the cutter doesn't submit the diamonds multiple times during the cutting process, he needs to leave some natural skin on.

How many pure green diamonds have you seen on leibish? They are rare indeed. Patches or no patches. Shmulik has a keen eye when it comes to buying diamonds for inventory.

I wish I had the cash to drop for your green diamond! Enjoy that puppy!

 

[T L]

You know Kenny,
I think all FCD's have modifiers, even when they say there are no modifiers. That is because modifiers are expected in FCD's. If you took that green diamond at the top of this thread, and put that same exact color on a tourmaline for example, most of us would say it had modifiers, and so would a gemologist. The green, red, blue of an FCD can never compare to the pure hues of fine emerald, ruby or sapphire, but they are diamonds afterall, and that makes them special.

 

[kenny]

Thanks AB, yes even Leibish with their huge inventory offers few greens that GIA has graced with their no-modifier grade.

TL, you make a good point about diamonds vs. other gems.
A diamond can never look like a good ruby or emerald.
I'm learning that "pure with no modifier" is not an absolute thing, GIA or no GIA.
I guess it means pure hue for how diamonds can look.

Even in diamonds nature provides them with specs that vary continuously, not those that fit neatly into discrete categories of clarity or color.
GIA has huge coarse boxes they drop FCD into.

I've noticed GIA has a huge range of what they call Yellow with no modifiers.
My Fancy Vivid Yellow asscher clearly has some orange & brown even to my untrained eyes, even when not placed next to a cleaner yellow.

I'm sure if GIA used tighter standards for their coveted "no modifier" grades the supply of "pure-colored" would shrink even more.
If you thought a pure blue was rare now, imagine if they tightened the grade.
Call me a cynic but I think GIA's FCD grading system lets more money be made and more collectors think they got a truly pure-hued FCD.
I'm not trying to start a GIA Huegate scandal; I think it is just the reality of what nature give us vs. commerce.

GIA is not the end all final say on color.
I suspect you could buy 100 GIA "pure" yellows, or pure blues, or pure greens, or probably any color and send them to Steve Hofer to get them analyzed further.
Hofer can tell you exactly where the color falls in colorspace and place your FCD in perspective relative to the many others he's seen with the exact same GIA grades.
I do think GIA has huge sway on what can be charged and what much of the FCD market will pay, but I've seen FCDs with the same GIA grades vary tremendously in price and color at Leibish.
I'll look at the specs and the price and wonder why one costs that much more; but when I look at the pic it's obvious the prettier color commands a higher price.

I'm sure the most savvy FCD collectors look way beyond what GIA grade state if they want the best of the best.

All that said, GIA is still the elephant in the FCD room and what they say means something, especially commercially.

 

[T L]

I think, and Mr. Zeolite confirmed this at one point I believe, that gems whether they're diamonds, rubies, spinels, tsavorites, etc. . . . are graded in saturation based on the saturation levels for that gem. For example, a tsavorite GIA vslbG 5/6, will not be the same saturation as an emerald vslbG 5/6, even though they're both very slightly bluish green stones in hue. Therefore, FCD's are graded on their own species/color, and even that differs from how the GIA set up a gemset for grading all other gemstones.

Also, the GIA doesn't really provide enough levels of saturation, as they can overlap, and unfortunately,that makes it easy to give a gem a far greater level of saturation on the GIA gemset than it should really have. It's based on the grader, and not all grader's eyes or experience are the same. That's why I always emphasize that one should use the AGL for color analysis on colored gemstones, and the GIA has it's own grading analysis on FCD's, which is scientific, unbiased, and graded by experts.

Unfortunately, the GIA doesn't provide the GIA gemset analysis on their lab reports, or any color level grading for that matter, for regular colored gemstones. Appraisers sometimes use the GIA gemset, and that is a faulty and flawed methodology for the reasons I stated above. I also find it strange that the GIA does not use it's own methodology, the GIA gemset, to grade colored gemstones. Perhaps they are aware of these flaws. ?????

 

[T L]

I've noticed GIA has a huge range of what they call Yellow with no modifiers.

This is true with all the hues of FCD's, and that's why saavy FCD collectors probably collect what is in the most saturated portion of that range. It's not enough to just look at the GIA FCD color alone, as again, they vary too much in levels of saturation within a "GIA saturation." Nature is just too complex, and I don't know if it's possible to categorize every possible range.

 

[AN0NYM0US]

As everyone probably already knows FCD are graded on a 1-10 within their color grade by most vendoers. That is why you may see two FIY same size, cut, sym etc... and one sell for 5000/ct and the other 10000/ct. The first might have been a 3 and the second an 8. Same cut, carat, color grade, much different look and price.

Also if you look at this stone http://www.fancydiamonds.net/view_diamonds/5074.htm in the pics I can see some yellow reflected in the tweezers, the enviroment or light choice could be affecting the color slightly.

 

[kenny]

As everyone probably already knows FCD are graded on a 1-10 within their color grade by most vendoers. That is why you may see two FIY same size, cut, sym etc... and one sell for 5000/ct and the other 10000/ct. The first might have been a 3 and the second an 8. Same cut, carat, color grade, much different look and price.

Good point.
Leibish has told me they do this.

Also besides that I suspect they must also grade how close the hue itself is to the adjacent hues.
Imagine two otherwise identical GIA Fancy Intense Greens, both graded 6 in saturation by the vendor . . .
Let's say one Green leans towards blue and another leans towards yellow.
Clearly the blue-leaner will be priced higher than the yellow-leaner - again these are both "pure" greens per GIA.

Next, there are modifiers strong enough to be GIA-assigned and how MUCH of the mod is there, and how desirable that mod is.
Red, green, blue modifiers makes price go up, while brown and gray makes price go down.
Then there can be more than one modifier, adding another order of magnitude to the pricing puzzle . . .
It must get quite complex for the vendor's GG and the person who must assign prices - plus it is maddening for a customer who expects to judge how "fair" a price is.
This AIN'T white diamonds.

People here ask me if I think a price is fair, and I have to say, "%$# if I know".