Yellow Diamonds
Natural fancy yellow diamonds are a part of the exclusive group of extremely rare natural colored diamonds occurring in nature in myriad colors. As such, these yellow gemstones are themselves extraordinarily rare, exclusive and expensive.
The universal perception about a diamond is that of it being a colorless (or white) stone, and it is a fact that most of the diamonds you come across are indeed colorless. But a very small percentage of these gemstones acquire particular shades of colors depending upon certain sets of atmospheric conditions existing in the vicinity of the diamonds during their formative years.
How does a yellow diamond become yellow?
A diamond is nothing but a crystallized isotope of carbon. The majority of natural diamonds develop in the high pressure & high temperature conditions existing at extreme depths of 140 kms to 190 kms within the Earth’s Mantle. Carbon or carbon containing minerals provide the seed carbon source. The crystallization of the carbon (nothing short of a miracle) into a diamond happens over a period of hundreds of millions of years.
Purer the carbon seed and the more perfect the crystalline lattice structure, clearer and more colorless is the resulting diamond. However, the conditions in which a diamond develops are far removed from the ideal and sanitized conditions of a laboratory.
At times the crystalline structure of the diamond gets distorted by the immense pressure at those depths. At other times, the seed carbons source gets impregnated with impurities like nitrogen, boron or hydrogen and many a times both the above factors occur together. Depending on the type of impurity (or crystalline distortion), the resulting diamond absorbs certain spectrums of light and reflects others. We perceive the color of the diamond based on the reflected spectrum of light.
The most common impurity element found is nitrogen. Nitrogen atoms have an unequal number of electrons than carbon. When both of them bond, one of the nitrogen electrons remains unattached. These free electrons in orbit around the nuclei partially absorb blue & violet light wavelengths. The wavelengths which are not absorbed appear yellow to the human eye thus giving the diamond its yellow coloration.
Overall, natural colored diamonds are extremely rare. However, among the elite group of natural colored diamonds, yellow diamonds are the most common. So much so that among the 100 largest diamonds in the world, about one third are yellow, with the most famous of them being The Kimberley Octahedron, weighing massive 616 carats.
Natural fancy yellow diamonds should not be confused with the transparent (or white) diamonds of inferior quality which also happen to appear pale yellow on account of presence of trace nitrogen impurities. The color grades of white (transparent) diamonds range from D to Z. Grade D diamonds are the whitest/clearest and most valuable, while grade Z are tinted with faint sickly yellow to brown and are least valuable in comparison.
However, a diamond with stronger yellow going beyond the Z color grade confers the coveted fancy yellow grade upon the diamond. Such a diamond is highly sought after by the celebrities, the royalties, the fashion forward, and the jewelry designers. The diamond becomes pretty expensive and goes beyond the reach of most of us.
As the diamonds become progressively darker yellow in color, they are given their own separate color grades as follows: fancy light yellow, fancy yellow, fancy intense yellow and fancy vivid yellow (also known as canary yellow).
 Fancy Vivid Yellow Diamond |
 Fancy Vivid Yellow Diamond |
 Fancy Vivid Yellow Diamond |
 Fancy Intense Yellow Diamond |
 Fancy Intense Yellow Diamond |
 Fancy Yellow Diamond |
 Fancy Yellow Diamond |
 Fancy Yellow Diamond |
 Fancy Light Yellow Diamond |
 Fancy Light Yellow Diamond |
 Y-Z Yellow Diamond |
 Y-Z Yellow Diamond |
 W-X Yellow Diamond |
 W-X Yellow Diamond |
 U-V Yellow Diamond |
 U-V Yellow Diamond |
 S-T Faint Yellow Diamond |
 G-color-white-diamond |
Like all colored diamonds, the deeper and more intense the yellow in a yellow diamond the higher the value of the diamond will be. A tiny .25-carat yellow diamond can be priced as high as 10,000 dollars depending on its clarity and cut. Larger 6 carat Fancy Vivid Yellow diamonds have been sold for as high as $57.000 per carat.
All yellow diamonds look more intense once set in yellow gold
Similar to white diamonds, the 4C’s namely color, cut, clarity and carat are the factors that need to be considered before choosing a yellow diamond. With Colored Diamonds, Clarity is not as important as Saturation of Color and their prices depend on saturation of color. A diamond must be certified by a gemological laboratory to be called natural.
Radiant and cushion cut work well with large, yellow diamonds because of their predisposition to hold color well. Using one of the round cuts has been known to lower the intensity of color by a full grade in certain cases.
The Argyle mine in Western Australia is the most prolific producer of yellow diamonds followed by diamond mines in South America and South Africa. Around one in every 1000 diamonds mined is a fancy colored diamond.
Occurrence of a natural vivid yellow diamond is even rarer. Natural intense fancy yellow diamonds are so rare that most jewelers have never seen one, and might never own one.
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