GIA K, Faint Brown is worth how much less?

[memorystation]

Diamond guru/experts/enthusiasts: I am comparing a stone that is GIA K with faint brown, 5ct+/-, if all parameters are identical in terms of clarity and cut, how much discount in value for a stone with faint brown is common or reasonable? Or say, is it worth less than a stone in the next color category (say L color) with similar specifics but without faint brown? Your thoughts/inputs are greatly appreciated!

 

[memorystation]

Anyone could kindly share any insight? By searching the discussion threads there, it doesn't seem to have a lot of discussions on the price/value impact of faint brown designation in a GIA report. Thank you in advance.

 

[flyingpig]

https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/k-color-with-faint-brown-what-do-you-think.175943/

I do not know $ difference between faint brown K and regular yellow K. I personally prefer faint brown K. But you will need to see it in person. Sometimes, it is champagne-like, sometimes pinkish, in some cases it is copper-like. Regular yellow K and J sometime remind me of yellow teeth.

 

[memorystation]

https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/k-color-with-faint-brown-what-do-you-think.175943/

I do not know $ difference between faint brown K and regular yellow K. I personally prefer faint brown K. But you will need to see it in person. Sometimes, it is champagne-like, sometimes pinkish, in some cases it is copper-like. Regular yellow K and J sometime remind me of yellow teeth.

Thank you for your input. Actually, I also saw that post during my search in the forum. I am glad to see quite a few people like faint brown undertone. However, none of the threads have explicitly talked about how much should a faint brown diamond be discounted on the market.

I have been helping a friend who plan to purchase a K faint brown diamond from a wholesale vendor. The stone appears to have a champagne-like undertone from the picture. Since neither of us have a clear idea how much discount is fair, so hope to get some insights from here. Because she is looking for a large stone, it is a little hard to find a suitable comparable through the retail venues, such as JA and Whiteflash.

If anyone has some experience, please chime in!

 

[diamondseeker2006]

I liked the idea of one until I ordered one. Because brown can make a stone dingy looking while a yellow undertone is very light yellow to champagne. Cut is everything in lower color stones, though. No yellow teeth look in an outstanding cut lower color stone such as the AVRs below.

These are M color, so really can't be compared to K, but it shows yellow and brown undertone and how much darker the brown can be in the same color grade. I did order the brown one to look at, but it wasn't pure brown and not what I wanted color-wise.

But once I ordered a J with brown undertone, and it was noticeably dingy looking compared to the other stones I was looking at. However, a 5 ct stone is a different ballgame. I am not sure you're going to get much pricing advice because of the uniqueness of the stone, but I'd personally just see if I can find price comps of K antique diamonds at 5 cts to establish a price range.

I realize she has perhaps already seen and chosen the stone. My comments were more to add to flyingpig's comments that he likes brown undertone since I once thought I did until I saw some! I do like a pure fancy light brown, though!

 

[kenny]

I'd say it's hard or impossible to know.
In theory you've asked a simple question, but in practice I think the answer will be elusive.

There are just so many other things that affect price.
Vendor's costs must vary tremendously:, insurance, number of employees, upgrade policy, photography, website, local cost of living like wages and rent, etc.
Then there's how much profit each vendor believes they can justify in the customers mind.
Do they have a boutique in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue, or just a dumpy non-descript warehouse in rural Alabama?

Next, there's the proprietary nature of the answer.
The folks best qualified to answer, vendors, aren't talking.
I've been reading PS for 13 years and can't recall one instance of a vendor explaining details of how they come up with their prices (or where their diamonds come from BTW).
A few of us civilians who post on Internet fora may like to think we know, but for all the reasons in this post I'd take answers from us with a grain of salt.
Legit professional appraisers may have the best guess, but they're aware of all the caveats in this post, and I'll bet they'd rather be paid for their expertise.

Lastly, you're not asking about a commodity like an ounce of gold, which has one daily universally agreed-to price around the globe.
This thread is an example of how each diamond is unique in many ways beyond the 4Cs.
Since no two are exactly identical, looking up the prices of comparable diamonds (even from the same vendor) is futile.

Sorry.

 

[ericad]

People often say they like faint brown (I've seen it mentioned on PS several times), but in practice I can't say they're easy to sell. More often than not I get people who want lower colored diamonds WITHOUT faint brown or grey tones. If the lab report notes the brown tint, then the brown is rather significant - often times stones can have faint brown hues but not enough to be noted on the report, but in either case I try to avoid buying "brownies" unless they're in fancy brown territory.

That being said, the discount between a brownie and a yellow toned stone is totally subjective, there's no rule of thumb. I personally would say maybe 5-10% discount for brown tones, perhaps more if the diamond is certed as faint brown. Brown tinted stones tend to face up darker than yellow toned stones of the same color grade, and often the brown tone is more visible to the eye from the side than yellow undertones, so they seem more tinted, even when the amount of color saturation is the same.

 

[Rockdiamond]

Interesting topic!
memorystation- you're correct that this topic is...esoteric. Not a lot of details can be found.
But mainly the reason is that the presence of faint brown in a K color can cause different effects.
Some of which are generally frowned upon. Brown itself is frowned upon by the market, making brown stones a real bargain for those who love them.
But- there are faint brown stones that somehow pick up a slight rosy tinge. They are rare indeed. In fact, finding GIA graded K colors with light brown tint noted by GIA is rare in itself.
There's also cases of faint brown K color stones that acutally hide color better than a stone leanign towards yellow- again, rare.
But in those cases where the brown helps, a K light brown may fetch a higher price than a "regular" K color.

 

[memorystation]

Thank you All (diamondseeker2006, kenny, ericad and Rockdiamond), you Rock!

What I am taking away from your comments and from some more research, is that “brownies” may be more prolific in smaller diamonds, and the exact pricing discount could be more discernible. However, the larger the diamond, the intrinsically more rare it becomes; and thus a faint brown (or any color really) plays less a factor in the total price? Please let me know if you all agree with these assessments or not.

Also, it seems, and again please let me know if any of you agree or not, that it may really come down to the subtle difference in body color the individual diamond appears (i.e. is it rosy, grey, champagne, brown, etc?). But it would also seem that generally a brown “brownie” garners lower monetary value. In my friend's case, a K faint brown may diminish the value (somewhere between 10-20%) but will not go beyond that?

And a final thought: I wonder if diamond colors are really just fashion trends. Maybe in twenty or thirty years “brownies” will be the rage, and yellows less so? I can’t figure out any natural reason for a lower value, other than demand.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Brown undertone diamonds have lower value because they are generally (not always) less bright and less attractive than their yellow undertone counterparts. So I don't see them ever being more popular. Fancy light brown and fancy light yellow both can be very beautiful to me. I just don't think the brown undertone is usually a good thing in higher color stones. I didn't really believe that until I saw some stones with it, though.

 

[ChristineRose]

And a final thought: I wonder if diamond colors are really just fashion trends. Maybe in twenty or thirty years “brownies” will be the rage, and yellows less so? I can’t figure out any natural reason for a lower value, other than demand.

There are absolutely trends in diamonds, and even more so in colored stoned. A few celebrities got a pink and suddenly everyone wants a Morganite because they can't afford a pink diamond. Fluorescence was a plus in the eighties because they are whiter than white, then Fluorescence was like an impurity--a line on your cert that you didn't want. Now it's coming back. And there's a trend towards lower color as well.

I think a lot of this is the Internet. Jewelers used to say things like "Your fiancée deserves better than a K." But now anyone can go online and and read about super-ideal K and eye clean SI2. Right now a lot of designers are doing rings with "cheap" materials that appeal to young people who'd rather have a pretty titanium ring that an ugly big diamond. That includes a lot of brown diamonds. But I'm not seeing brown K catching on because the tint is subtle and there aren't enough browns out there for a major designer to build a style around the look.

 

[Rockdiamond]

Someone mentioned pricing and sources- and I think these are interesting aspects as well. I do believe it has been touched upon many times. I think the origin of a piece of rough is interesting. In most cases, vendors don't know specific geographic sources.

In terms of where the vendor buys the diamonds, I agree, no seller is going to disclose wholesale vendors names.

While it's true that vendors are very unlikely to discuss specific profit margins, I think that discussions of general pricing are interesting and have taken place many times.
Many sellers simply place a profit on top of what the cutter or dealer is charging. This is particularly true, and obvious of sites that offer virtual diamonds. Why should one 1.00ct G/VS1 by double the price of another on the VD lists?
For sellers that actually own diamonds, adding a percentage over cost doesn't always work.
What if the seller overpaid?
What if the seller bought two stones for a combination price ( such as when buying a parcel), and each has drastically differing values?
In these cases knowing what the stones are actually worth currently in the market is crucial.

Sorry for the threadjack- I thought it was an interesting point.

 

[memorystation]

Someone mentioned pricing and sources- and I think these are interesting aspects as well. I do believe it has been touched upon many times. I think the origin of a piece of rough is interesting. In most cases, vendors don't know specific geographic sources.

In terms of where the vendor buys the diamonds, I agree, no seller is going to disclose wholesale vendors names.

While it's true that vendors are very unlikely to discuss specific profit margins, I think that discussions of general pricing are interesting and have taken place many times.
Many sellers simply place a profit on top of what the cutter or dealer is charging. This is particularly true, and obvious of sites that offer virtual diamonds. Why should one 1.00ct G/VS1 by double the price of another on the VD lists?
For sellers that actually own diamonds, adding a percentage over cost doesn't always work.
What if the seller overpaid?
What if the seller bought two stones for a combination price ( such as when buying a parcel), and each has drastically differing values?
In these cases knowing what the stones are actually worth currently in the market is crucial.

Sorry for the threadjack- I thought it was an interesting point.

Pricing question is indeed intriguing and I enjoy this discussion. Thank you, Rockdiamond! No worries about the threadjack. I basically agree every diamond is unique in its own way and vendors face a variety of cost factors. So, getting precise pricing advice is difficult in my friend's case.
But the question I am curious about is, hopefully it is a general question: will a larger size well cut stone with faint brown undertone be discounted more or discounted less compared to a smaller size stones (e.g. 1 carat range) with the same undertone? The actual body tone based on the vendor's picture appears to a faint champagne color.

If anyone else would like to chime in, I would love to hear your thoughts.

 

[Rockdiamond]

will a larger size well cut stone with faint brown undertone be discounted more or discounted less compared to a smaller size stones (e.g. 1 carat range) with the same undertone?

Yes
Seriously, there are so few stones in this category around, it's really not possible to make accurate price predictions.
As a general rule- If you can see brown in the photo, it will lower the price

 

[rockysalamander]

Pricing question is indeed intriguing and I enjoy this discussion. Thank you, Rockdiamond! No worries about the threadjack. I basically agree every diamond is unique in its own way and vendors face a variety of cost factors. So, getting precise pricing advice is difficult in my friend's case.
But the question I am curious about is, hopefully it is a general question: will a larger size well cut stone with faint brown undertone be discounted more or discounted less compared to a smaller size stones (e.g. 1 carat range) with the same undertone? The actual body tone based on the vendor's picture appears to a faint champagne color.

If anyone else would like to chime in, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Based on the stones we've seen posted here on PS at that size, I've not seen any discernible difference in prices for otherwise identical diamonds at that size. Fluorescence in higher colors and eye-clean SI2 are often where there are notable discounts at all sizes/colors within the typical PS poster range (say .5 c to 3 c). But, YMMV. If two otherwise identical stones were purchases from two different vendors on two different days, one may cost more simply due to the wholesale cost.

I find this all very interesting myself as I too have seen all three body colors and consistently prefer brown over yellow and grey over both -- when well-cut. I find this especially true in old-cuts. 20 years ago, browns would have had a much larger discount. But, color tolerance seems to have increased since my grandmother was in the business.