Editor’s Note
A remarkable piece of natural history, the world’s largest orange diamond has set a new auction record. This article details its journey from discovery in South Africa to its multi-million dollar sale in Geneva.
The world’s largest orange diamond, weighing 14.82 carats, was auctioned at Christie’s in Geneva for 23.57 million euros (31.5 million US dollars), setting a sales record for a diamond of this color.
The sale price exceeded the auction house’s estimate, which had expected to reach 20 million dollars for this intensely orange “vivid fancy” colored gem, named “The Orange”. It was found in South Africa and holds the highest rating from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).
The previous record for a diamond of this color was 2.9 million euros (3.92 million dollars), paid for the so-called “The Graff Orange Diamond” – weighing 4.77 carats – in a bid at the same auction house in Geneva in November 1990.
Pure orange diamonds, also known as “fire diamonds”, are exceptionally rare and very few of them come up for auction, none to date weighing more than six carats. In general, colored diamonds are much less common than white ones, and they command much higher prices per carat in the market than even absolutely perfect translucent stones.
For example, green diamonds owe their hue to soil radioactivity; blue ones get their color from boron; yellow diamonds, which rarely turn orange, are colored by the effect of nitrogen; while pink diamonds are produced by the distortion of the crystal lattice when the gem is taking shape.