Red Diamonds: The Rarest Gem Of All

If you saw the movie "Titanic" you might have been surprises to learn that diamonds come in other colors than clear. The blue diamond in the fictional Heart of The Ocean necklace wasn't a sapphire. Diamonds really do come in colors and red diamonds are one of the rarest of all colors.

The Colors of Diamonds: Red, Blue, And Beyond

When you purchase a diamond, color is one of the ways that a diamond is graded. All diamonds have some amount of color in them, but the more color that is in a white diamond, the less desirable that diamond is to the consumer or jewelry connoisseur. There are diamonds that are supposed to have color and these rare and beautiful stones actually have increased value because of their coloring. Colored stones come in pinks, greens purples, yellows, blues, and of course red diamonds, which have at times been mistakenly sold at estate sales and private jewelry auctions as garnets.

Diamonds that have naturally come by their color do so in a few different ways. Each gemstone contains trace elements that make it a unique creation. For example diamond that has a higher degree of nitrogen in it will be more yellow. Natural colored diamonds are very rare and as a result they are very expensive.

If you can't afford a natural red diamond, take heart. There are beautifully simulated red diamonds available for reasonable prices. These lab created red diamonds are manipulated in the creation process to enhance the color the gemologist strives to create and you will be hard pressed to tell them apart from natural red diamonds. Most red diamonds are lab created, because colored natural diamonds are very rare and very expensive. If you see a red diamond with an affordable price tag, you can be assured that it is a lab created gemstone. If a jeweler tries to sell you a red diamond, telling you that it is natural, be sure that you ask for a certificate of authenticity or you could be paying red diamond prices for lab created stones.

The Most Famous Of All Red Diamonds

The Moussaieff Red is perhaps the most famous of the world's red diamonds. This brilliant stone is 5.11 total carats and carries a GIA color grade of fancy red. When found on a farm in Brazil, this stone weighed in at 13.9 carats in the rough. It is the largest fancy red diamond to receive a grade by the GIA.