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Will GIA grade a diamond Fancy Intense Brown?

davi_el_mejor

Brilliant_Rock
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Mar 8, 2010
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I haven't found anything listed graded by GIA as intense brown. Can anyone shed some light?

ETA: I've seen deep, light dark browns but not an intense or vivid
 
Good question.

They also have only one saturation grade for pure red diamonds, Fancy Red.
There is no Fancy Intense Red or Fancy Deep Red, or any of the 9 saturation grades, only Fancy Red.
Weird.

I can understand the argument for not having Faint or Light Red grades because they are covered by the Pink grades.
Okay, but then how can there be Vivid Pink and Deep Pink which are not a red?

Maybe GIA uses the same mysterious logic on Brown.

I wish GIA would have a representative post here.
 
Fancy Deep and Fancy Dark as well as Fancy and Fancy Light are the only grades I recall ever seeing for brown. I've looked at a bunch too since I am considering buying a brown diamond next.
 
It looks as though having brown instantly disqualifies a stone from being intense or vivid.
 
i too am curious about this...

but my guess would be, since brown is such a deep hue by nature, as soon as a yellow diamond has brown tint in it, it might have been a fancy vivid yellow, but it turns to fancy deep brownish yellow or fancy dark brownish yellow... just my 2 cents...
 
I'm going to make an effort to explain this, but I apologize in advance if i just make it more confusing.. :)

Inherently, there will not be a straight brown diamond that can fall in the intense or vivid category. A brown diamond will not have a strong enough saturation to fit into those categories. If it is that saturated, it will enter into the orange family.

In basic terms, when a grade is being assigned, they are looking at the relationship between Tone and Saturation. I think this is the most common problem I see when I think a stone has been misgraded, where one is misinterpreted as the other. In tone, you can have a light tone ranging to a dark tone, and then you will have weak to moderate to strong saturation. Browns are a great example of how we can misinterpret the two. If you look at a nice rich chocolate brown diamond. Your first impression may be to say that it is really saturated, because you see this deep rich color. But what you are really seeing is the darker tone of the hue, with a moderate saturation which allows it to have that bright rich brilliance. If that same diamond was had more saturation, it jumps right to deep or dark, because it has a dark tone. To be Vivid, it would have to have strong saturation with a light to medium tone, which we don't see in nature. Theoretically I guess it would be possible, but that's when you would start to see the orange tones.

It's easy to mistake tone for saturation, and you really have to train your eyes to discern the difference. When I think the GIA has misgraded a stone, it is almost always because I felt they mixed up how they were viewing the tone and saturation.

I know that is a very basic explanation, and I'm sure someone can put this concept in better terms than me but I hope that helps.
 
Excellent post David.

This is the same reason that there is no 'vivid Black' grade.
 
Thanks so much David.

Your post increased my understanding of FCD grading a great deal. :appl:
 
Thank you David. It made perfect sense!
 
I said in the other thread. ORANGE BROWN can be vivid and can be intense. Brown cannot I guess.
 
I don't understand the difference? Brown orange vs orange brown I assumed were the same. I think it got both names in different reports was one way the second was the other but I assumed it was just semantics? I'm so over the details. I don't get the light stuff or this modifier business.
 
Ditto David.

Interestingly as I perform a query for "fancy brown" with no other restraining criteria I pull up 1346 options.

When I alter the query to "fancy DARK brown" I also pull up options with GIA grades.

Once I query "Fancy Intense Brown" 0 options show up. It appears once you hit the "Fancy Intense" designation that's when you begin to introduce the other hues mixed with the brown color. Ie. fancy intense yellowish/orangy etc. brown descriptions.

Below is an example of a "fancy dark brown" via GIA.

fancydarkbrowngia.jpg
 
chatbandit|1379804285|3524976 said:
I don't understand the difference? Brown orange vs orange brown I assumed were the same. I think it got both names in different reports was one way the second was the other but I assumed it was just semantics? I'm so over the details. I don't get the light stuff or this modifier business.

I relate to your confusion.
I shared it when I started getting into FCDs.
We spend our lives seeing what we see but not categorizing what we see into these new categories, hue, tone and saturation.

One thing that helped me get it was the graphic that appears on every GIA FCD report.



Think of it as a slice out of a doughnut.
If we could see the whole doughnut the hue would vary as we go around the doughnut.



Next, notice the horizontal axis and the vertical axis of GIA's chart.
Stronger color is on the outside of the doughnut or the right side and weaker color is on the inside or the left side. (But swap the word saturation for color.)
It is darkest on the bottom of the doughnut and lightest on the top. (But swap the word tone for darkness and lightness.)

gia_color_6.jpg

screen_shot_2013-09-21_at_8.png
 
Another tool I use to help separate tone and saturation in my mind is photography.
Some programs like Photoshop have a control to removed the color, which leaves you with a black and white image.

Notice how some colors have a darker tone than others when the color is removed.

screen_shot_2013-09-21_at_1.png
 
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