Purity of Color, Fancy-Color:

This refers to the hue and the purity of the hue. Let’s take “ yellow ” as an example. The color of a fancy yellow diamond might be described as “yellow,” “orangish-yellow,” “brownish-yellow,” “brown-yellow,” and so on. Understanding the differences in the wording is very important. The final word in the color description is the hue; the word or words preceding it are the modifiers of the hue.

Having no modifier means the color is a pure hue and, depending upon the color, can be very rare. Some color combinations are rarer and costlier than others. For example, let’s consider two diamonds where one is “orangy-yellow” and the other is “brownish-yellow.” In both cases, the hue is “yellow” but since orange is rarer than brown, the orangy-yellow stone would be more valuable than the brownish-yellow stone.

Now let’s look again at the description of the “brownish-yellow” stone. Here the primary color is yellow, with a lesser degree of brown modifying the color. However, if the words were reversed, that is, yellowish-brown rather than brownish-yellow, the words would tell us the diamond is “brown” with some lesser amount of yellow modifying the color. Again, since brown is a much less rare color, a yellowish-brown diamond would have less value than a brownish-yellow.

For more information on diamonds read DoW’s4C’s on fancy-colored diamonds information. More