What Makes a Red or Pink Diamond?

Photo: Prestigeonline - The Eternal Pink diamond

Today I’d like to feature red and pink diamonds. Natural red and pink diamonds are the rarest gemstones on earth. Natural pink diamonds make up less than 0.01 -0.1% of all the gem quality diamonds minded while natural red diamonds make up less than .00001 of of the diamonds mined. Many of them were found in the now closed Argyle mine in North-Eastern Australia. 

Fancy colored gemstones usually form when impurities such as boron or nitrogen enter their atomic structure. This is not the case for pink or red diamonds. Their colors are caused by a distortion in the diamond's crystal lattice produced by intense heat and pressure from all directions after the stone's formation in the earth, an ultra rare occurrence! A special configuration of molecules lets us see the stone as pink or red as light passes through it. 

Red diamonds are often less than a carat in weight. 👈The Moussaieff Red Diamond, a trilliant-cut, internally flawless 5.11-carat red diamond, is the largest known red diamond in the world. Discovered in the 1990s in Brazil’s Minas Gerais region, it weighed 13.90 carats in its rough, uncut form. Auctioned for $8 million in 2001, experts think it would fetch $20 million today due to the double rarity of its color and size.

Photo Phillips Auction House

The Argyle Phoenex👉 at 1.56 carats is the largest brilliant round cut fancy red diamond in the world. The ultra-rare pure red gemstone came from the now-depleted and closed Argyle mine. It sold for a record breaking $4.2 million at a Phillips auction in Geneva in 2024. Small, yet intense and stunning!

Frankly, unlike red diamonds, I’ve never been enamoured by pink diamonds until the 👆Eternal Pink diamond came along. At 10.57 carats, it’s not the biggest pink diamond in the world, but IMHO it’s the most gorgeous, plus I love the diamond's exquisite ring setting. The Eternal Pink diamond is a cushion cut internally flawless Fancy Vivid Purplish Pink color reduced from a 23.78-carat rough stone found in Botswana. In 2023, it was sold at Sotheby's for $34.8 million.

Many of the world’s other big pink diamonds are less saturated, so a paler pink and so large, they don’t look as lovely on a finger, which is not to say you wouldn’t ogle them upon sight.

Photo: National Jewelry/Sotheby's

The CTF Pink Star👉, mined in Africa by DeBeers, is not only the biggest and most expensive pink diamond ever sold, but it is the most pricey gemstone ever auctioned. Costing $71.2 million in 2017, the 59.60-carat oval-mixed cut stone is internally flawless and graded by the GIA as a Fancy Vivid Pink Diamond. 

Golly-gee, is it an enormous diamond to wear as a ring, but I’m sure I could get used to all the carat weight, if I had to wear it.:)

The Desert Rose - Sotheby's

👈The Desert Rose is the largest and most famous pear-shaped diamond in the world. A 31.68 carat Fancy Vivid Orangy Pink diamond, with VVS1 clarity, it sold at Sotheby’s for $8.8 million in 2025.

The Fortune Pink,👇 a mere 18.18 carat diamond graded Fancy Vivid pink by GIA with VVS2 clarity, was the previous largest pear-shaped Fancy Vivid pink diamond. Christie’s auctioned it for $28.8 million, and I’m going to show you its luminous beauty below. The new owner can wear it mounted as either a ring or a necklace.

Pink and especially red diamonds start as the rarest gemstones on Earth, and as their natural supply dwindles, their value will keep rising! But more than their monetary value, they are a true, rare, natural phenomenon. Reminders of Mother Nature’s powerful forces and lustrious beauty.

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