Origin of name
The Graff Blue diamond is one of the eponymous diamonds
bearing the name Graff, and is listed among the 36 Graff diamonds given in
the web pages of the company. The name reflects the name of the owner and
the color of the diamond.
Characteristics of the
diamond
The Graff Blue diamond is a pear-shaped, fancy intense
blue stone, weighing 6.19 carats. The stone is set in a ring, probably by
expert craftsmen of the handcrafted jewelry workshop of Graff, situated in
London.
The Graff Blue diamond is a Type IIb diamond, which is
nitrogen-free, and the blue color is caused by the presence of trace
quantities of boron, which has an atomic size comparable to that of carbon,
and can be incorporated into the crystal structure of diamond. Unlike other
diamonds which are non-conductors of electricity, Type IIb diamonds are
semi-conductors.
In the table given below, the Graff Blue diamond,
occupies the 10th position, which is the last row on the table. In this
table, the largest diamond which is the Hope Diamond, has a weight of only
45.52 carats and the smallest diamond has a weight of 6.19 carats. Thus blue
diamonds have a restricted weight compared to other diamonds such as the
colorless diamonds or yellow diamonds.
List of famous blue
diamonds in the world
|
S/N |
Name |
carat weight |
color |
|
1 |
Hope diamond |
45.52 |
fancy dark grayish blue |
|
2 |
Tereschenko |
42.92 |
fancy blue |
|
3 |
Wittelsbach |
35.56 |
fancy intense blue |
|
4 |
Sultan of Morocco |
35.27 |
fancy grayish blue |
|
5 |
The Blue Heart |
30.82 |
fancy intense blue |
|
6 |
The Heart of Eternity |
27.64 |
fancy vivid blue |
|
7 |
Transvaal Blue |
25.00 |
unknown color grade |
|
8 |
The Blue Empress |
14.00 |
unknown color grade |
|
9 |
The Blue Magic |
12.02 |
fancy vivid blue |
|
10 |
Graff Blue |
6.19 |
fancy intense blue |
History
The early history of the diamond, such as the country of
origin, mine of origin, original owners of the diamond, date of discovery
etc. are not known. In spite of it's relatively small size, the fancy
intense natural blue color of the stone. makes it an extremely rare gem,
with the potential of becoming a famous and notable diamond in the future.
Among natural diamonds the commonest colors are yellow
and brown, eg. the Cape Series, and the Argyle diamonds, followed by
colorless and grey, and then the fancy colored diamonds. Fancy colored
diamonds are generally very rare. The rarest fancy colored diamonds are
orange, red, purple and green. The next rarest are pink and blue. Black
diamonds, also known as Carbonado, are found mainly in two countries, Brazil
and Central African Republic, but most of these diamonds are industrial
quality. Gem
quality black diamonds are quite rare.
The occurrence of blue diamonds is only about 0.1 % of
all natural diamonds. Actually they are even rarer than this rough estimate.
In the Premier diamond mines of South Africa, which is the main source of
blue diamonds in the world today, only one significant blue diamond is mined
per year out of all the rough production in the mine. This must be
definitely less than 0.1 %. In the Argyle mines only one carat of pink
diamond is produced for every 1,000,000 carats of rough diamonds. This works
out to a very low percentage of 0.0001 % ! This is a more realistic estimate
of the occurrence of pink diamonds.
Thus the phenomenon of blue diamonds is extremely rare.
Among the various shades of blue, fancy intense blue, is still rarer, that
if not for the renowned Graff name worldwide, a symbol of rarity, beauty,
excellence and quality, the above diamond, would have been considered to be
an
artificially irradiated stone.
Prior to the 19th century, the world's only known source
of blue diamonds, was the Golconda mines of Southern India, near Hyderabad,
in Andhra Pradesh. But, later Premier diamond mines in South Africa, became
the main source of these extremely rare diamonds. The collection of eleven
extremely rare, exceptional quality, blue diamonds, known as the De Beers
Millennium Diamond Collection, and displayed at the London's Millennium
Dome, throughout the new millennium year 2000, were all sourced from the
famous Premier diamond mines of South Africa. Even the Graff Blue diamond
must have originated in the Premier diamond mines, even though the mine of
origin of the diamond is not known.
With respect to pricing of fancy colored diamonds,
besides the normal criteria of cut, clarity, shape and weight used in the
pricing of colorless or white stones, additional criteria, such as the
rarity of the color, and it's intensity, also play a very important part in
the pricing of fancy colored diamonds. Thus the price per carat of
exceptional quality, rare fancy colored diamonds, of high color intensity,
are generally much higher, than the price per carat of high quality
colorless diamonds.
Red and purple being the rarest fetch the highest prices,
followed by orange and green and then blue and pink. Fancy intense yellow
and golden brown diamonds have also been fetching fairly high prices. The
0.95-carat Hancock Red diamond sold for a record price of $ 880,000 at a
Sotheby's auction in 1987, and was purchased by an agent of the Sultan of
Brunei. This works out to about $ 926,000 per carat. The current price per
carat for exceptional quality blue diamonds is about $ 500,000 to $ 600,000.
Based on this value the current estimated value of the Graff blue diamond
which has a carat weight of 6.19 carats is over $ 3,000,000.
The world's largest colored diamond collection, is said
to be owned by the Sultan of Brunei. Another renowned colored diamond
collection is the Aurora Collection, which consists of 296 colored diamonds
weighing 267.45 carats, and owned by Alan Bronstein and Harry Rodman, who
collected the diamonds over a period of 25 years.
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