The Price of a Pink

You don't have to be an expert to know that pink diamonds are rather pricey. And that they're likely becoming even pricier following the closure in 2020 of the iconic Argyle mine in Australia, which produced 90 per cent of the world's pinks.

The entire contents of every Argyle Pink Diamonds Tender, held annually from 1984, would barely fill two champagne flutes.

But it's only once you delve a little into the detail of pink diamonds that you realize quite how huge an impact a subtle difference can make to the price.

Three pink diamond stories caught my interest in recent days. The first was the sale at Sotheby's Hong Kong of a pair of pear-shaped fancy pink pendant diamond earrings, weighing 11.17 carats and 10.85 carats.

They attracted little media interest outside the diamond world, and sold for a very respectable $6.14m, mid-way between their high and low estimates.

The all-important price per carat was $307,000, if we discount the other, smaller surmounted white diamonds.

Bear in mind that the earrings were straightforward fancy. After fancy comes fancy intense and fancy deep, then fancy vivid.

Compare and contrast with the forthcoming sale in June, at Sotheby's New York, of another pink diamond, which is actually smaller than either of them, at 10.57 carats.

But the thing about the Eternal Pink, mined by De Beers at the Damtshaa mine in Botswana, is that it's vivid. Not only that, but according to Sotheby's it's the most vivid pink diamond ever to come to market.  

That's why it carries an estimate of $35m, which would equate to a price per carat of $3,311,258 - more than 10 times the pink diamond earrings. And why it received such wide coverage in the mainstream media.

It is, however, still a way off the record price per carat of $5,178,124, paid last October by a private collector from Florida, USA, for the Williamson Pink Star at Sotheby's Hong Kong.

The cushion-shaped internally flawless diamond, named after the Petra mine in Tanzania, where it was recovered, was another fancy vivid pink.

So far, so rare. But the third pink diamond story I spotted took me in another direction altogether - lab grown pink diamonds making a debut in high-end watches.

TAG Heuer has just unveiled a new version of its Carrera Plasma Diamant d'Avant-Garde, with a distinctive 1.3 carat CVD lab grown pink diamond as the winding crown, engraved with the watchmaker's logo.

The watch, which appeared at last week's Watches & Wonders Geneva 2023, also has a TAG Heuer shaped shield on the dial.

There's much talk right now of a bifurcation between natural diamonds and lab growns. Here we see an interesting development as the Swiss watchmaker opts for the latter to upgrade its most expensive watch ever - priced at $376,000.

It is, says the company, part of its "innovative spirit" to create such a disruptive design. Lab growns are already making inroads in bridal. Let's see where else they end up in the "grown up" world of diamonds.

Have a fabulous weekend.