GIA color grading of red diamonds

[kenny]

GIA has 9 color grades for tone and saturation:
Faint
Very light
Light
Fancy light
Fancy
Fancy Intense
Fancy Vivid
Fancy Deep
Fancy dark

For some reason these three diamons all got only Fancy Purplish Red grades from GIA even though the color is incredibly strong.
Not Intense.
Not Vivid.
Not deep.
Not dark.
Only Fancy.

blue, green orange diamond in the "Fancy" grade are very very pale compared to all 3 of these reds.
What's going on?
Here are all three: http://www.fancydiamonds.net/red_diamonds

Is there no such thing as intense, vivid, deep or dark grades for red diamonds?

 

[ForteKitty]

if they're lighter, they'd fall into the pink category, no? some pinks are pretty vivid/deep, so i'd think the reds would pick up where the intense/vivid/deep pinks leave off.

 

[starryeyed]

$92K for 0.22-carat?? Holy smokes Kenny! Did you reserve the bigger one?

 

[missydebby]

They are gorgeous Ken. I am so loving living vicariously through you, babe

BTW, my fav, for what it's worth, is the square. It's just breathtaking.

 

[kenny]

Yes, it is problematic that strong pink is red and wimpy red is pink.

I have seen Intense Vivid and Deep pink grades.

Does anyone know if Red comes in all 9 grades or just a few? WHich?

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Yes, it is problematic that strong pink is red and wimpy red is pink.

I have seen Intense Vivid and Deep pink grades.

Does anyone know if Red comes in all 9 grades or just a few? WHich?

Pink to my knowledge is the only exapmle of a color word usage where the color HUE has more than one name.
Red and pink are the same hue but different lightnesses.

There are 3 things needed to describe color:
1. hue = place on the rainbow (rainbow are pure colors)
2. shade = dakness / lightness
3. Saturation = brightness (desaturated blue things are greyish and red things are brownish)

Pink is a lighter shade of red.
You can have fully saturated red and even more saturated pink (e.g the ideal-scope color).

Hope that helps

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

GIA has 9 color grades for tone and saturation:
Faint
Very light
Light
Fancy light
Fancy
Fancy Intense
Fancy Vivid
Fancy Deep
Fancy dark

For some reason these three diamons all got only Fancy Purplish Red grades from GIA even though the color is incredibly strong.
Not Intense.
Not Vivid.
Not deep.
Not dark.
Only Fancy.

blue, green orange diamond in the "Fancy" grade are very very pale compared to all 3 of these reds.
What's going on?
Here are all three: http://www.fancydiamonds.net/red_diamonds

Is there no such thing as intense, vivid, deep or dark grades for red diamonds?

e.g. you can not have fancy deep or fancy dark pink - that would by definition be RED (possibly with a hue or shade modifyer)

 

[kenny]

e.g. you can not have fancy deep or fancy dark pink - that would by definition be RED (possibly with a hue or shade modifyer)

But Garry, the same vendor, fancydiamonds.net aka Leibish, has 5 diamonds GIA graded Deep Pink.
So do you know whether Red appears in ANY other saturation than just plain old Fancy (per GIA grading).
They also have a couple dark pinks, but they have color modifiers.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

e.g. you can not have fancy deep or fancy dark pink - that would by definition be RED (possibly with a hue or shade modifyer)

But Garry, the same vendor, fancydiamonds.net aka Leibish, has 5 diamonds GIA graded Deep Pink.
So do you know whether Red appears in ANY other saturation than just plain old Fancy (per GIA grading).
They also have a couple dark pinks, but they have color modifiers.

Beats me Kenny
How accurate are the photo's?

 

[kenny]

e.g. you can not have fancy deep or fancy dark pink - that would by definition be RED (possibly with a hue or shade modifyer)

But Garry, the same vendor, fancydiamonds.net aka Leibish, has 5 diamonds GIA graded Deep Pink.
So do you know whether Red appears in ANY other saturation than just plain old Fancy (per GIA grading).
They also have a couple dark pinks, but they have color modifiers.

Beats me Kenny
How accurate are the photo's?

Well the issue is that GIA even has the grades Vivid Pink, Deep Pink and Dark Pink, rather than calling them red, and the reds above are only graded "Fancy" which is right in the middle of the color intensity range.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

e.g. you can not have fancy deep or fancy dark pink - that would by definition be RED (possibly with a hue or shade modifyer)

But Garry, the same vendor, fancydiamonds.net aka Leibish, has 5 diamonds GIA graded Deep Pink.
So do you know whether Red appears in ANY other saturation than just plain old Fancy (per GIA grading).
They also have a couple dark pinks, but they have color modifiers.

Beats me Kenny
How accurate are the photo's?

Well the issue is that GIA even has the grades Vivid Pink, Deep Pink and Dark Pink, rather than calling them red.

Lets not have a GIA color grading debate / slanging flame session

John Pollard has some very nice images of the system being used for colored diamond GIA-GTL submissions by the boutique Surat manufacturing facility - LTM.
It starts with rough photo's, stransmission spectra, planning images in DiamCalc. Hope he gets time to put some up.

 

[petrock<3]

Hey Kenny are you building yourself a nice little sparlky rainbow?

 

[kenny]

Hey Kenny are you building yourself a nice little sparlky rainbow?

Well the reds are pretty pricey.
I almost grabbed this little red pear when I bought those green and blue diamonds last month.
I passed on it but it sold the same day to another buyer.
Funny, the post that influenced me not buy it was when someone said it will never sell, it's overpriced and nobody will ever want a 6 point FCDs.


I've never seen a red diamond but now that I have a nice green and a nice blue I'd love to round it out with a red or a violet.

 

[acebruin]

i'm pretty sure the same color grading system is used to grade red diamonds... maybe we should ask a different question... how many dealers have actually seen a red diamond with their own eyes? what % of fancydiamonds.net inventory is red diamonds? now combine those 2 questions together, and we might never even see or hear a fancy vivid red diamond in our lifetime!

 

[Tom Gelb]

Hello,

I can shed some light on this topic. In color science pink is a lighter and/or weaker shade of red. Since diamonds had been called both pink and red before the GIA was even around it was important to use both terms within their system. Please note that I am writing about the original system from the 1950's, not the enhanced system from the mid-1990's. At this point the grades were fewer (no vivid or deep for any hue) and limited outside of yellow diamonds to a highest grade of Fancy. Thus a fancy Pink diamond was the weaker shade of a Fancy Red diamond. There was not intense, deep, or vivid for Pink. With the enhancements in the mid-1990's the boundary for Red was not shifted, it still had to have the same saturation and darkness as it had previously, but intense, vivid, and deep were added to the Pink range. A fancy red diamond must be as strong as a vivid pink, but darker, as dark as a Deep Pink, but stronger. It is theoretically possible for their to be an intense, deep or even vivid red, but a diamond with that amount of color has yet to be submitted to the GIA, and likely has not yet been dug out of the ground.

I hope this helps, and I can answer any more questions on this topic if I have muddied the waters instead of clarifying.

 

[kenny]

It is theoretically possible for their to be an intense, deep or even vivid red, but a diamond with that amount of color has yet to be submitted to the GIA, and likely has not yet been dug out of the ground.

Thank you.
That does clarify it and is exactly the answer I was looking for.
I was suspecting the grades themselves for Intense and above just didn't exist for Red.

Along similar lines I read that the reason Steve Hofner did not include a section on violet in his huge book, Collecting and Classifying Colored Diamonds, was up till publishing date he had not encountered a pure violet diamond.
Since then he has.

So perhaps one day someone will get a grade of Fancy Intense, Vivid or Deep Red from GIA.
(Can you imagine the price!!!!!!)

 

[Leibish & Co.]

Kenny hi,

That's a lovely topic you started, Red diamonds are a very interesting conversation topic

As for our days, the only intensity of Red diamonds is Fancy, it does not come in any other color intensity.
Usually Fancy is a certain color grade which stats a certain intensity, in Red diamonds the definition of Fancy is same like Deep or Vivid in any other color in terms of saturatin and intensity.

The only different Reds have is in their overtone, they can appear as the following options:
*Fancy Red(straight with no over tone, considered the rarest Red diamond
*Fancy Purplish Red
*Fancy Ornagy Red
*Fancy Brownish Red
*Fancy Brownish Ornagy Red(i have yet to see this color but i think it exists)


Red diamonds are magnificent and are from the family of Deep pink, there are Deep pinks that the difference between and a Red diamond is very very thin but weren't "Red" enough to pass the GIA tests.

As for Pinks, they do exist in Deep Pink as for Dark, i have never seen one myself, i can say for sure if such a color exist or not but i can say that i see hundreds of Pink diamond a year and have never seen a Dark Pink before, so even if it does exist, it is very very rare and uncommon.

in the picture below you can see 4 different Reds and the difference between them.
From left to right, clock wise
Fancy Ornagy Red, Fancy Red, Fancy Brownish Red, Fnacy Purplish Red.

 

[Leibish & Co.]

in the pic i posted , in the botom line, the pic on the right is the Fancy Purplish Red and the left on is Fancy Brownish Red(not like i wrote in the other post).

Itzik

 

[kenny]

the only intensity of Red diamonds is Fancy, it does not come in any other color intensity.
Usually Fancy is a certain color grade which stats a certain intensity, in Red diamonds the definition of Fancy is same like Deep or Vivid in any other color in terms of saturatin and intensity.

Thanks so much Itzik.

This is very surprising and I wonder why GIA has only one saturation grade for Red instead of all 9 as with the other hues.
And how can there be a deep or dark pink that's not a Red.
IOW why isn't pink a weak red, and red a strong pink.

I'd also love to see a Red side by side with a dark pink or deep pink to try to understand the difference GIA must see.

Garry, I'm not starting a flame war.
Gimme a break.
Their system makes red and pink seem like they are different hues, which makes this a totally legit question.
Itzik has explain what GIA does, but I'm still curious why.

 

[Tom Gelb]

Hello Kenny,

Very briefly in color science Pink is defined as weak and/or light red. There are really no other areas of color space where this distinction is made or necessary. Light yellow has no other name, neither light blue, etc. Only in this hue range is this distinction made. You will also notice that there is no term where pink and red are used simultaneously, i.e Fancy pinkish red. This is because it would not make sense using this color science convention. I hope this clears things up a bit.

Good luck,