Fancy Coloured diamonds popularity and price has risen globally, partly driven by Asian investors.
Fancy Orange, Pink, Yellow, and Blue diamonds have appreciated over 150 % according to the Fancy Colour Research Foundation.
Hong Kong and China represent 40% of sales of the fancy coloured diamond sales; this demand of the extremely rare colours is pushing up its prices.
In Recent months Auction houses have sold some of the most valuable natural colour diamonds setting new records for Fancy Orange, Pinks and Blues.
Armed robbers forced customers and staff to the floor, and then ordered one worker to open the jewellery cases.
The robbers made off with an unknown number of diamonds from the Tiffany & Co. store in San Francisco.
Sgt. Monica McDonald said authorities were viewing footage from surveillance cameras in the Westfield San Francisco Centre area, but remains baffled how the robbers pulled off the heist undetected.
No one was hurt during the robbery.
Diamond industry leaders, the (SDA) and the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) will begin an awareness campaign in the diamond industry. They will focus on the various types of synthetic diamonds, and the identification and disclosure.
Detailed information on the various forms of synthetic diamonds including High Pressure High Temperature and Chemical Vapor Deposition will be provided.
Dealers, Jewellers and valuers in the industry are not able to differentiate between natural and synthetic diamonds. Leading to Lab grown diamonds being mixed in parcels with natural diamonds.
This has made it necessary to educate manufacturers and dealers, and bring awareness to the entire trade.
Natural diamonds will have the term Natural diamond on the certificate, or have a natural diamond report.
Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction sales rose to new records for both the auction houses.
Jewellery sales topped $740 million and $602.5 respectively.
A notable sale was The Graff Vivid Yellow diamond reaching $16.3 million, a record price for any yellow diamond to date.
During 2014 Sotheby’s jewellery sold over 3,900 lots of which 77 items topped $1 million. With an overall sell through rate in was 81 percent.
Gem Diamonds reported that it saw an encouraging end to a very positive year after the fourth quarter of 2014.
CEO Clifford Elphick said the despite a drop in diamond recovery, 25,525 carats down from 28,365 carats in the third quarter. The Letseng mine in Lesotho has continued to perform strongly.
Gem Diamonds remains on track to declare a maiden dividend in March 2015, Based on the positive results and the rise in the price per carat from $2,043 in 2013 to $2,540 in 2014.
Being the ultimate possession for diamond lovers, Natural fancy Orange diamond is extremely rare. To be classified as a fancy orange, there can be no brown in the diamonds colour.
Orange colour in diamond is rarer in nature than most other fancy colours, so rare even the GIA rarely grades an orange diamond.
As a result, orange diamonds that receive pure orange are even rarer than the natural fancy red or blue diamonds. And have therefore set records per carat exceeding any other fancy colour.
Orange is the colour of the true fancy diamond connoisseur.
Assortment and qualities showed no significant changes.
Although with the first sight of 2015 having an estimated value of $450 million, De Beers has anticipated the slowing rough market with an estimated 4 percent price adjustment across the board.
In the open rough market prices for similar goods are 20 percent lower than the contract sales, by the major miners. According to a sightholder.
General sentiment in the rough market was negative among sightholders and brokers. “I don’t know of a single box at the sight on which people will make money,” said a sightholder
De Beers has relaxed sightholder allocation rules for the January sight, allowing the deferment of 25 percent for two months without a penalty.
20 percent of the sight boxes buy values were deferred.
A diamond mine outside of Prieska in the Northern Cape of South Africa, became the latest victim of a robbery on Monday.
South African police are looking for a group of sixteen men who tied up security guards, before they demanded the safe keys from two employees.
Unable to access the safe, they broke into the sorting room, and managed to get away with an undisclosed quantity of rough diamonds.
Two laboratory grown diamonds, the largest D colour internally flawless lab-created diamonds have been certified by IGI Antwerp laboratory.
Both stones are triple excellent and have no colour overtones or fluorescence. The diamonds were submitted by Diamaz International a leading supplier of laboratory grown diamonds based in Antwerp.
Technological advancements in HPHT have made it possible to grown diamonds in D to F colours from 1ct to 3 t with great consistency.
It is predicted demand for these high quality HPHT diamonds will soon outstrip supply.
ABN Amro, Standard Chartered, State Bank of India and IDBI Bank continue to reduce credit levels to jewellery companies.
Winsome Diamonds and Forever Precious Diamond had defaulted on a $970 million debt owed to creditors prompting banks to act. The Banks have classified gems and jewellery into the high risk category.
Jewellery industry representatives will meet with Finance Ministry officials on Tuesday In a bid to bring much needed liquidity into the industry.
