Argyle pink diamonds are one of the rarest natural diamonds you will find on Earth. Diamonds are slowly formed underground over millions of years as a result of such immense heat and pressure that we’re left with the hardest naturally occurring material on Earth. Naturally formed diamonds are already an extremely rare product of Mother Earth, but anyone who has ever been lucky enough to find an Argyle pink diamond ring will agree that these pink diamonds will take any collection to a whole new level. Why are pink diamonds so rare? Where do they come from and what makes them so impressive?
The Argyle Diamond Mine can be found in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. Despite only opening in 1985, it’s the world’s largest diamond producer by volume and was famously the first commercial mine to produce splendid rare gems. This isn’t the main reason the mine is famous, however – it’s also well known as the Earth’s most significant source of pink diamonds, producing 90 percent of the world’s supply, as well as a large proportion of champagne, cognac, and rare blue diamonds.
Considering how rare these diamonds are geographically, you begin to wonder what it is that makes them pink. We know what makes a blue diamond blue – traces of boron in soil being incorporated into the developing diamond as it forms. Yellow diamonds are similarly yellow because of their trace levels of nitrogen. However, pink diamonds contain no chemical impurities which can be identified by leading scientists. Some experts believe that the colour may be a result of the historic seismic activity causing the defects which refract pink light. Given that the seismic activity varies wildly from area to area, this could explain why Kimberley is the world’s only significant source of these pink diamonds.
Despite being one of the world’s most important diamond mines, due to the low yield of gem-quality stones, the Argyle Diamond Mine is expected to be shut down. With only 5 years left to find what few stones are left, it’s easy to see why Argyle pink diamonds are so precious. Argyle has estimated that “for every million carats of rough pink diamonds produced from the mine, only one polished carat is offered for sale by annual tender.” To put that in perspective, for every 200kg of rough pink diamond that Argyle finds, only 0.2g of it hits the market.
Argyle has also estimated that there are less than 500 tender quality diamonds yet to be unearthed in their mines, meaning that with each passing day, these extremely limited edition stones are becoming rarer still. It’s for this reason that even very small pink natural diamonds start at £10,000 and go as high as the millions. The most expensive pink diamond per carat was sold at Sotheby in Hong Kong in October 2014, when an 8.41carat gem went for £11 million –that’s more than £1.3m a carat, and as recently as the 11th November 2015, Christie’s sold the world’s largest Argyle vivid pink diamond for £19m and so on.
It seems the demand for pink diamonds is insatiable among investors and connoisseurs.
Here at Marlow’s Diamonds, we have recently come into possession of one of these extremely rare collector’s pieces, just in time for Christmas 2015. If you’re interested in purchasing this real pink diamond, please don’t hesitate to contact us today.
